There was a national story last spring about a young Black man, Ralph Yarl, who was shot and left for dead by a neighbor. Ralph’s offense was ringing the wrong doorbell.
Initial coverage simply stated that this incident happened, without mention of Ralph’s race or the race of the person who shot him.
“A lot of people overlooked the story. I did too, until people sent us news information,” says Ryan Sorrell, founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Kansas City Defender, a digital news startup in Kansas City that’s so much more than just a conduit for information.
Ralph’s aunt reached out to Sorrell, telling him that Ralph is a young Black man who was shot by an older White man who looked his victim in the eye, told him to never come around again, shot him once and then again after the teenager fell to the ground. The Defender published these details and the story went viral.
“President Joe Biden commented on it, Vice President Kamala Harris, Halle Berry commented on it, all types of celebrities commented on it. Our own mayor said if it wasn’t for us, he named the Defender specifically, the world wouldn’t know” about what really happened,” Sorrel says.
A few months ago, this two-year-old organization published coverage claiming there was a possible serial killer who would abduct Black women in Kansas City. A woman went missing and people contacted the Defender saying it wasn’t just her, there were others.
“We received numerous testimonies from people in the community. A local bishop made a video about it and we reposted the video, saying we’re still looking into (the situation), we don’t have a trusting relationship with the police and we don’t trust they’ll have the best interest of Black people in mind,” Sorrell says.
Three days later, the local police department, without contacting the Defender or Sorrell to discuss sources or any information provided, addressed the video as “unfounded rumors” without any basis to support the claims that were made. The Defender didn’t back down or waiver in its coverage, even after Newsweek, the Atlanta Black Star, and other national and local news organizations accused them of reporting bad information.
“Three weeks later, a 22-year-old Black woman escaped the basement of a man named Timothy Haslett Jr., a 33-year-old White man, who kidnapped her,” Sorrell says. “She was kidnapped in the same timeframe we said in our reports. She confirmed what we said was happening. As a result of that case, which is ongoing, a month and a half ago, (police) found a second victim in a blue barrel floating in the Missouri River. The police department reinstated the missing persons unit as a direct result of that story.”
But the Defender does not talk about journalism in its mission statement. When asked how he would respond to people who look at the Defender as a mouthpiece, just a group of young people doing advocacy work, Sorrell chuckles.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing, actually,” he says. “It’s very much in line with the tradition of the Black press. That’s the reason why I started my own news outlet. I very much had an issue with a lot of the ethics and values that are put forth through the Society of Professional Journalists or the Associated Press, their philosophy and values. … There’s a specific philosophy of journalism called solidarity journalism and that’s what we practice. We’re very dedicated to truth, we’ve very dedicated to accuracy. We don’t think that being an advocacy news outlet keeps us from doing those things.”
The news and information provided by the Defender and the way in which it operates, with Sorrell at the helm, caught the eye of the Institute for Nonprofit News, which named him the Innovator of the Year, at the 2023 Nonprofit News Awards, which called Sorrell the Emerging Leader of the Year.
Being a news outlet also doesn’t stop the Defender from its other focus, which is outreach and supporting the community.
“Only half the organization is editorial. The other is community programs” Sorrell says. “We’ve organized basketball tournaments. He had a hip hop concert on Juneteenth. We’ve hosted a young Black writer’s social.” The Defender also organized what Sorrell calls a “grocery buyout,” where money is raised and then handed out to customers at a grocery store in a Black neighborhood. They’ve organized clothing handouts and distributions and host a biweekly political education event.
“I don’t necessarily see myself as a journalist. I see myself as an organizer and that’s part of our mission statement,” Sorrell says. “We want to provide information for the survival and flourishing of Black people in our community.”
