Central New York Vision is a weekly newspaper that covers local and regional news in a way that is relevant to the black community in Syracuse. Its mission statement explains that the paper works “to foster self-awareness, build community and empower people of color to reach their greatest potential. Further, CNY Vision seeks to present a balanced view of relevant issues, utilizing its resources to build bridges among diverse populations; taking them from information to understanding.”

The Daily Orange talked with CNY Vision’s publisher and editor Dave McCleary about the paper and giving a voice to minorities.

The Daily Orange: How did you become involved in the paper?

Dave McCleary: We run a paper in Rochester called “The Minority Reporter.” I started that publication in 2007. We were getting a lot of readers from Syracuse, and because we’re a weekly paper there were a lot of online readers. A lot of readers were emailing us and saying they wanted to have a paper like this in Syracuse. Back then Syracuse had Urban CNY, an online monthly publication. I don’t know if it still publishes anymore. We were already covering a lot of local news, so in 2009 we started exploring the Syracuse area and started CNY Vision.

The D.O.: How has your experience with Central New York Vision been?

D.M.: The paper has been a well-received paper, and we have a continuously growing readership. What we have done over the years is that we pretty much became more of a daily online and weekly print publication. A lot has happened with the media and the switch to the digital platform over the years. Now on our digital platform we publish more daily news, and then we compile some of them and put them on our weekly print paper.

The D.O.: What is the purpose of CNY Vision?

D.M.:We exist to inform the minority community, primarily the African American community, of issues that exist and provide information that we think is important. Often times minorities don’t always have a voice in some of the issues that are happening. We aim to represent the minority community in some of these issues by talking to city officials and members of the minority community about them. Through this we can maybe become informative to some of the city officials we talk to and they can take minorities into account when moving forward with the decisions they make.

The D.O.: Why do you think is it important to give voice to minorities?

D.M.: Minorities have a long history in this country. Politically and socially we’re a part of the community — and yes, we are one community. The purpose here is not to discriminate and to separate ourselves. If you bring people to form a dialogue about these issues, that can bring understanding. This can go a long way of people getting along with each other, and officials making more informed decisions.

The D.O.: How is CNY Vision’s approach to news different from that of the mainstream media?

D.M.: First of all, it is a matter of who’s represented in that particular article. Many times the mainstream media focuses on the majority of the population. Often times, in that story there might not be minority voices. Therefore, when reporting we can have interviews with various African American members of the social and governmental spectrum. The important thing here is that they’re being represented. We’re going to try to find what is their perspective of the issue covered and how it affects them.

Published on January 30, 2017 at 10:27 pm

Contact Deniz: dsahintu@syr.edu