Publisher: 6-year-old Redding News Review focuses on airwaves

The site is celebrating six years on the Web

By Staff

    March 25, 2007, 12:30 p.m. - After six years, Redding News Review Publisher Robert "Rob" Redding Jr. said the site is refocusing on its radio presence.

    Redding News Review the Show — a two-hour radio program — has just been added by XM Satellite Radio's 169 The Power. The show is tentatively scheduled to start after April 15.

    The announcement comes as Minnesota-based Genesis Communications Network began to distribute the brand new two-hour weekly radio show, named after Robert “Rob” Redding Jr.’s Web site Redding News Review, on March 1st. The show is currently heard from 10 a.m. to noon ET Saturdays on the show's flagship station — Talk 540 KMLB-AM in Monroe, La.

    "The airwaves are still the best way to get the word out about our content and we are doing that now through our new deals with GCN and XM," Redding said.  

    He said Redding News Review the  Web site started as a part of his daily three-hour radio show heard on Viacom-owned WAOK-AM in Atlanta. 

     "Six years ago, black listeners were tired of the same old mainstream managed news and wanted something different," Redding said. "We have been the standard for 'Black News' on the Web ever since."    

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     Critically acclaimed    

    Redding News Review, a leader in news on the Internet, won its first "Black Web Award" in November, 2007, shortly after starting its comprehensive business news section.

     The site, which also covers national, political, international, media, entertainment and sports news, was named the "Best News Distributor Site." 

     "This award is special because it comes from the readers and users of the World Wide Web," Redding said at the time.  

     The Web site, which has been called "an Internet clearinghouse for African-American news," by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was the first to report former Mayor and Ambassador Andrew Young's comments that Sen. Barack Obama was not ready to be president.    

     The Web site was also credited by Editor & Publisher for breaking news of the harassment of Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts by a white supremacist group. The group is now being investigated by the FBI and local authorities.   

    In December 2004, the Web site's breaking news coverage prompted Brian Williams, NBC News anchor and managing editor, to apologize for saying there are "bigger problems" than newsroom diversity. It also spurred the news anchor's boss, NBC News President Neal Shapiro, to vow to redouble the company's minority hiring efforts.

    Redding News Review has also been recognized by the National Association of Black Journalists for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. The Web site ran a widely read exclusive pointing out the Drudge Report's questionable use of a photo and headline. The Drudge Report's photo likened black people to being "Trapped like animals." The exclusive report resulted in the photo being taken down and being run on the front page of NABJ’s Web site for more than two weeks.

    Overall, its scoops have been acknowledged or linked to by NPR, Fox News, BET, MSNBC, Roll Call, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Times, The National Newspaper Association and many other major news Web sites.    

   Award winning staff

     The site's award winning staff includes: International Editor Bruno Gaston, Entertainment Editor Keyonna Summers, Business Manager Nadra Cobb and Attorney Roy Miller.

      Veteran Executive Editor Marlene Johnson joined the Web site in July of 2007. She is a longtime writer, editor and public relations practitioner, who spent almost a decade as an assistant metro editor at The Washington Times. 

    "We are outspoken, bold, honest and visionary," she said. "The interests of the people, not the politicians, is our mission."

    Summers, who edits the site's entertainment section, is a courts reporter for Florida Today and a former immigration reporter for The Washington Times. She joined the site in June 2007.

    The beginning  

    The Web site's parent company Redding Communications, Inc. (RCI) has catapulted Redding News Review to new, independent heights when compared to its humble start in a tiny 3-by-10-foot closet in Atlanta on March 25, 2002.   

    Redding, who has worked for various newspapers across the country, started the website approximately 90 days after his Atlanta-based radio program aired in December of 2001.

    "It is a virtual newspaper portal of sorts," he said five years ago, as he worked in his makeshift Atlanta office littered with crates full of books and news clippings. He used the office at the time to wage war with the news titans of the mainstream.

    "When I started [Redding] News Review on March 25, 2002, I did it because I felt like people needed an apparatus to tackle issues that were important to them," he said.

    "Blacks are the target audience of Redding News Review, because the concerns of our people are rarely addressed by the mainstream media,” Redding said.

    "I don't think I can underscore enough the importance of bringing news to the forefront, which is what I believe this site does," he said. "And at the same time I think we give people ample opportunity to comment on issues through our message board without being censored by some editor."

    Today, Redding works in several private offices across the globe, which are becoming more cluttered with articles of recognition from the mainstream media he initially set out to target.

    "You have to have a sharp eye for news and have excellent news judgment," he said. "I think the national recognition that we have received in this short amount of time proves we have what it takes to compete with the big kids on the block." 

    The readers

    Celeste Kieselstein-Hearn of Atlanta, who is one of more than 350 readers who log onto the growing news portal daily, says Redding News Review provides her with an overview of "many different news sources."

    "Since accessing The Redding News Review, I have found it very informative and I spend a lot of time on it daily," she said. 

    Sean Summers, of Detroit, agreed.   

    "The site really keeps me up to date on things I otherwise would not have caught on my own," he said. "I especially love how it is a one stop shop for local, American and global news, sprinkled with a little entertainment ... oh, and I think the weekly podcast is the bomb too!" 

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