0820_AUG Comstock's Magazine 0820 August | Page 19

The Sacramento Observer was
founded in 1962 by your father, William
Hanford Lee, who passed away
last September. Tell me about the
background of the company.
My dad was one of three founders. He
was joined by John W. Cole and Gino
Gladden, (who) passed away pretty
young. … It really became a family
business pretty early between my dad
and my mom (Kathryn Lee). She ran
the business side of things and handled
the staffing side, and my dad ran the
editorial and whole vision side of our
business. I am the youngest of three
sons, and my oldest brother, Roddy Lee,
passed away in 1994. … I have another
brother, Billy Lee Jr., and he is in the
entertainment industry, so he currently
lives in (Los Angeles).
All three boys really played a role
in the family business. My grandmother
was our receptionist. I had
cousins who did layout and design and
photography and wrote. I had aunts
and uncles who did sales. It was a family
business for sure, along with other
people in our community who really
helped create an Observer family and,
if you ask me, an amazing institution.
We had as many as seven publications
across the West at one time. So it was
very ambitious and one of the most
amazing stories in the history of the
Black press. (My dad) served as publisher
of our paper for 52 years.
How has The Sacramento Observer
adapted to changes in the media
landscape to both survive as a business
and stay relevant among readers?
When I left for college in 1991, there was
no internet. When I came back from
college in ’97, it was obviously an important
part (of) the industry. We have
always had leadership that has always
The Black press first originated
in 1827, and the credo is no one
else will speak for us. It has always
had an advocacy role through the
pages of the paper. … There is a need
to not only just report on the issues,
but to be a part of the discussion
that helps change the conditions for
our community.
wanted to make sure we change. … For
instance, we launched our website in
2000, and then, shortly thereafter, we
were the first Black newspaper to start
sending news to people on their cellphones
via text messaging; we started
doing text alerts about 2010. We started
doing things like email marketing …
pretty early.
The challenge not only the Observer
faces but other media outlets face (has
been) trying to find ways to monetize
what we do so we weren’t giving our
content away for free. … The key moving
forward for us is building a sustainability
model that will allow us to not only
deliver relevant news and content to our
audience, but also to be able to sustain
ourselves and continue to grow as a
business. We’ve made some challenging
decisions over the last five years or so
that from the outside surface may look
like we are retreating, but we’re actually
rebuilding and rebranding ourselves.
We sold our Oak Park office — we
resided (there) for 50 years — and decided
to remodel a new location on Del
Paso Boulevard. The idea basically is to
reimagine what our media outlet can be,
so I’m really trying to push us to have a
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