The Washington Informer, a Black, woman-owned multimedia newspaper, is celebrating 60 years of service to the Black D.C. area community.
The paper’s publisher, Denise Rolark Barnes, carries on the legacy of her father, Calvin W. Rolark, who founded the weekly newspaper in 1964 to highlight positive stories about the local Black community.
There are always items on your to-do list when you run a newspaper. Barnes is used to the grind because she’s worked in news since her dad founded the paper.
“Making bank deposits, talking to customers, at the age of 13 and 14 years old. It was quite an experience,” Barnes said.
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For the past 60 years, Barnes and her family built the Informer into a staple of D.C., covering historic events like the 1968 riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Washington football team's Super Bowl victories.
The paper evolved to the modern age with a website, social media presence and email newsletters.
“It’s constantly changing, and we’re constantly learning, and it’s consistently exciting about what we do. Somewhat frustrating, but consistently exciting,” Barnes said.
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However, running a small newspaper hasn’t always been easy. Barnes said it took the Informer nearly 60 years to be seen as a respected, serious publication.
“A lot of times we’ve had doors shut on us because people just didn’t respect who we were and the kind of journalism we were trying to do,” she said.
Barnes' father died in 1994, and the paper went through tough times financially. Boxing promoter Don King offered to buy the Informer, but only if he could change its name.
“With less than 10 cents in our bank account, that was not gonna work. We put too much into this,” Barnes said.
Now, the Informer has found enough advertisers to keep going, and it kept its decades-long tradition of sponsoring the D.C. spelling bee.
“We wanted to encourage young people to be their best academically and to become great spellers,” Barnes told News 4 at the 2017 spelling bee.
As the newspaper celebrates a major milestone, Barnes said she and her team plan to continue coverage of the stories that matter as long as they can.
“It’s a challenge, but we just keep knocking on those doors,” she said.
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