Founded in 1997 The Black Star News has scored several investigative news scoops–including an incident at Morgan Stanley where the firm paid an informant to entrap a dismissed African American employee to disrupt a wrongful termination lawsuit he intended to file; a corrupt lawyer who fleeced money from settlement awards he’d won for elderly Jewish Holocaust survivors; a racist decade-long vendetta against a Queens resident of Guyanese ethnic Indian ancestry by officers at the NYPD’s 106 precinct; a major corruption scandal where Uganda’s foreign minister earned about $30 million from the United Nations through a fraudulently acquired contract; cases where a prominent New York City union has not vigorously stood up on behalf of dues-paying members when allegedly wrongfully-suspended or dismissed; the case of a U-Michigan Sparrow-Health doctor who allegedly drugged his Haitian immigrant wife for years to impair her mental faculties in order to steer 90% of the couple’s marital assets and custody of their children to himself; and many more.
The Morgan Stanley scoop established the publication’s reputation for investigative journalism and earned The Black Star News coverage in The Wall Street Journal, The Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times magazine, New York Observer, The Village Voice, and Brill’s Content magazine. Publisher Allimadi was interviewed on CNN about the scoop.
Publisher:
Milton Allimadi attended the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia for an M.S. degree; he won the prestigious James Wechsler Memorial Prize award in international journalism at Columbia. He has M.A. and Bachelors degrees in Economics from Syracuse University. He started his journalism career with internships at The Journal of Commerce and The Wall Street Journal. He was a freelance reporter for The New York Times, a reporter and deputy managing editor with The City Sun, before co-founding The Black Star News with Mana Lumumba-Kasongo and Ben Otunu using seed-money from Camille and Bill Cosby. Allimadi is an Adjunct Professor of African History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) in the Africana Studies Department and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia. He can be heard every Tuesday afternoon at 3PM co-hosting with Colin Benjamin “Black Star News Show” on WBAI 99.5 FM New York Radio and www.wbai.org
[email protected] (646) 261-7566
Entertainment Editor:
Deardra Shuler has experience in theater, music, concert promotion, radio, television and publishing. She was affiliated with the Negro Ensemble Company and is a former manager of the children’s theater, TADA. She has produced and promoted concerts in Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall, Apollo Theater, NJPAC, and Radio City Music Hall. She has been the editor and managing editor of 3 minority newspapers. Her Internet radio show “Topically Yours” is on the BlakeRadio Network, where she is the Program Manager and has produced other host shows. Ms. Shuler is a former press representative for RossLive Entertainment representing Michael Jackson performance artists for the show “Invincible: A Glorious Tribute to Michael Jackson.” Deardra spent a year as PR Chairman of the Paul Robeson Award Initiative associated with the bi-annual FESPACO Film Festival featured in Quagadougou, Burkina Faso, West Africa.
Contact: [email protected]
Managing Editor:
Colin Benjamin attended Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus and studied journalism under the tutelage of Dr. Donald Bird and Dr. Ralph Engelman. Dr. Bird, the former Chair and Professor of Journalism at LIU’s Brooklyn Campus, called Benjamin “one of the finest students I have taught in my more than 30-year career of fullitme teaching.” Dr. Engelman, the current Chair and Professor of Journalism at LIU’s Brooklyn Campus, called Benjamin “a gifted” and “outstanding journalism major” with “superior oral and written communication skills.” On June 2, 2016, Benjamin, and the Black Star News, won an Ippies Award for Benjamin’s editorial commentary entitled “South Carolina Massacre and The Hate That Produced Dylan Roof.”
Contact: [email protected]
Vernon Verdree is the Advertisement Sales Manager. For ad placements and sponsorship please reach him via [email protected]
Sports Writer: Distinio Lois, Jr
Contact: [email protected].
