By Sydney Goitia-Doran, The Seattle Medium
In its 55th year of serving the Black community in the Pacific Northwest, The Seattle Medium is continuing to expand its audience and reach across Seattle and beyond. The flagship publication of Tiloben Publishing Company, the legacy Black-owned outlet now operates alongside three other print publications, three websites, a ticketing platform for events, and an app.
According to Publisher and CEO of Tiloben Publishing, Christopher B. Bennett, The Medium was founded in 1970, when his father Christopher H. Bennett felt Seattle needed a news outlet to tackle hard issues during a time of civil unrest.
“He started this publication as a message from the people to the people to give a voice to our community, which really didn’t have a strong voice at that time from a print perspective,” says Bennett. “They had radio, and they were able to utilize radio pretty effectively here in Seattle, but they didn’t have a print publication that was really able to provide them with a voice and a platform to really talk about our issues from our perspective.”
Tiloben Publishing Company includes The Seattle Medium, The Tacoma True Citizen, The Portland Medium, The Seattle Metro Homemaker, seattlemedium.com, portlandmedium.com, ticketsanddeals.com, and The Seattle Medium App. In addition, they recently added their eighth media property with the launch of seattlemetronews.com, which aims to cover a wider array of neighborhoods and demographics in the city. An online extension of The Seattle Metro Homemaker, the new site will highlight specific neighborhoods in Central and Southeast Seattle with plans to expand across the city.
“The thing that carries over to anything is if you’re good storytellers and good journalists you’re going to be able to create good stories regardless of what that audience is,” Bennett says. “We’re taking some of our skill sets and rolling those over into a much broader perspective to still provide advocacy for so many people and to expand the voices that we’re able to elevate on this new platform.”
Josiah Scott, digital social media manager for The Seattle Medium, has seen the publication expand its audience through social media and search engines during his three years with the company. He sees The Seattle Metro News site as an opportunity to provide representation for people in hyper focused local areas.
“We’re still telling those stories you typically don’t hear and tell but we’re doing it for a much more concentrated audience in these different areas, so people can see themselves or see other people that they know in these stories,” Scott says. “I feel like that would be the power of the Seattle metro news.”
According to Bennett, the new additions to their media properties continue to build on The Medium’s long-standing role as “an extension of the community,” which provides a platform for both information and action.
“If we don’t tell our story from our perspective, then who will?” Bennett asked. “We can’t allow other people to have a narrative for us that presents things in a way that might be skewed in such a way where it might not really reflect the true realities of what’s going on in our community and how we truly feel about things.”
“We’re the voice of the community, but we also want to make sure that we’re telling those stories from a perspective that otherwise would go untold if we weren’t here doing the job that we’re doing,” he added.
Over the years, The Medium’s advocacy has included food and clothing drives, scholarship support, and helping people with day-to-day problems. Bennett says there was even a time when people would call The Seattle Medium before calling 911.
“When you build that type of reputation in the community, when people know that you’re there to fight for them, that helps you with engagement in the community,” Bennett says. “And people respect what you’re doing not only as a publication but what you’re doing just for people and individuals and organizations that make things better for a lot of people.”
This responsibility comes with challenges, but Bennett said the Black press has always faced adversity with innovation and resilience. Like many institutions in the Black community, the organization historically has had to do more with less while continuing to serve its audience. Rising costs are one of today’s hurdles. Most of the newsprint used in the United States comes from Canada, and tariffs — a 30% tariff on newsprint implemented during Trump’s first administration coupled with the current 25% on goods from Canadian — have driven up expenses.
“When you adjust for inflation, one of our most basic costs—newsprint—has gone up anywhere from 65 to 70 percent, and there may be more increases ahead,” Bennett says. “But we’ve been here before. The Black press has always found ways to adapt; to keep our publications accessible and to make the best use of our resources so we can reach as many people as possible.”
There are several ways people can access The Seattle Medium, including purchasing a single copy for 25 cents or a yearly subscription mailed to your home for $34 in King or Pierce County or $68 beyond that.
“We have a pretty intricate distribution system. I like to call it a full complement of everything. We what we have as our single copy sales, we distribute through newsstands throughout the area,” Bennett said. “We’ve got businesses that we distribute through, churches. We’re in most of the King County libraries. We’re in most of the Seattle Public Libraries and we also have subscriptions for people who want home delivery.”
Another big challenge The Medium faced was during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bennett recalled losing a significant number of the publication’s print advertisements literally overnight. Aaron Allen, assistant editor of The Seattle Medium, admired Bennet’s response to the situation.
“When everyone else was kind of falling by the wayside into the pandemic, Chris’s work and work ethic and ideas and innovation, was able to maintain his family’s business through a time when most businesses were faltering and even dying,” Allen says.
Bennett had to be creative and intentional about how to stretch resources to continue publishing and distribution. This included making unexpected upgrades to The Seattle Medium’s website, seattlemedium.com, to accommodate a significant increase in the number of visitors to the site during the pandemic. That shift allowed the publication to survive—and even emerge stronger.
“We came out of COVID in a better place and in a very good place and a solid place. From a print perspective, we were still able to continue publishing and getting news and information out to the community from a digital perspective,” Bennett said. “And we were able to diversify our revenue streams in such a way that we insulated ourselves a little more so that we wouldn’t be in a position if all of these print ads that we had in place came off the board, that we wouldn’t be in a situation where we had to think about ceasing publication or distribution, laying off employees, or things of that nature.”
In the next five to ten years, Bennett anticipates media companies will continue consolidating and being removed from local areas. Still, he said The Seattle Medium’s impact will increase because of its investments in talented people and digital aspects like websites and The Seattle Medium app.
“I think that it’s important for publications like ours to double down on our mission and to double down on the type of news and content that we’re producing,” Bennett says. “The one good thing that we are able to do is that from a digital perspective that allows us to be a lot more flexible and more nimble.”
“And we’ve been very fortunate to be able to have some very talented people walk through these doors and work with us, particularly in the last five years or so that have allowed us to be in a position to get into a trajectory that sets us up for the future,” he added.
Scott says that the organization is looking to explore the ethical use of digital tools to improve the workflow of writers and staff.
“With AI tools and using AI generation, making sure that we always have human eyes looking at it, so even as we’re making all these expansions, they aren’t being done without knowing the consequences and risks of it,” Scott says. “But also knowing what exactly can we do to make sure that it’s not only ethical, but also has a positive impact on not only what we’re doing as a company and like as a publication.”
As the largest Black-owned media company in the Pacific Northwest, Allen says the internet provided the opportunity to build upon an already strong foundation.
“We have a very loyal following in the Pacific Northwest that dates back to the 1970s, so over 50 years of loyal readers,” Allen says. “Because of the technology and because of the internet, we’ve been able to expand to a younger generation.”
Bennett recognized the important role that Black-owned newspapers play in the community. He tries to find unique stories, highlighting work and people that would otherwise go unnoticed, building onto the legacy of the Black press.
“People know that we’re here advocating for them through a media outlet that is not afraid to speak truth to power that is not afraid to stand up to bigger organizations or bigger entities whatever that may be,” he said. “And really provide a voice and a platform for our people in our community no matter if they’re a big name in the community or just an everyday person who just wants to go to work do their thing.”
