Florida Newspaper Launches Weekly Aimed at Black Community
GAINESVILLE, Fla.
The Gainesville Sun announced it is launching a weekly newspaper aimed at this college town’s east side and its predominantly Black population. The Gainesville Guardian will debut Wednesday.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to provide a new media outlet specifically for the East Gainesville community,” said Jim Doughton, publisher of the Guardian and the Sun, both owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group.
Toby Usnik, a spokesman for the Times, said the decision to publish the Guardian was the result of research. “We discovered this area of Gainesville was being underserved,” he said. Gainesville is the home of the University of Florida.
Charlotte Roy, a former managing editor of the Black-owned Atlanta Daily World, will be the Guardian’s editor. She has also worked as a writer for the Detroit Free Press, the Capitol Times in Madison, Wis., the Wilmington Morning News in Delaware and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She also owned Roy Communications, an Atlanta-based communications agency, and she is a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists.
