GBH News Rooted” has a big legacy to live up to. This iteration of the longtime television show “Basic Black” aims to provide a similar space for news, culture and discussions related to Boston’s Black community, but with a format friendly to a wider viewership.
The program began as “Say Brother” in 1968. It was the first public television show geared toward people of color and quickly gained a devoted following. Later renamed “Basic Black,” the show covered news and culture topics within Boston’s Black community, often through round table discussions and interviews.
When “Basic Black” was pulled from the air in May 2024, there was heavy pushback from staff and viewers. Now, the program is reborn.
“GBH News Rooted,” hosted by Paris Alston, is different from its predecessor in a few ways. Instead of airing only on television, it will be accessible on YouTube and GBH radio as well. This is meant to preserve the longtime television audience of “Basic Black” while making the program accessible to audiences who absorb media in different ways. This may be a younger audience used to YouTube or folks who are more easily able to tune into radio than television in the evenings.
The content and tone of the program has also shifted with accessibility in mind. There will still be many in-studio roundtable discussions like those on “Basic Black,” but Alston will also be on the street interviewing folks as well as shooting episodes on site in businesses and public spaces. The show’s name comes from a desire to be rooted in the Black community.
“We’re putting different people around that table from different walks of life and greater ranges of age and experience, but we’re still having that central conversation,” said Alston. “There’s a huge loyal audience that’s been around just as long and we don’t want those people to feel alienated. At the same time, we want to bring in new audiences, new generations, that can help carry the legacy of the show forward.”
In addition to in-studio roundtable discussions like those on “Basic Black,” Alston will also be on the street interviewing folks as well as shooting episodes on site in businesses and public spaces. PHOTO: GBH NEWS
Serious issues and news are still a central tenet of the show, but the tone is slightly less formal and more conversational. Alston has a knack for taking issues seriously but he also knows when to lean into humor and personal stories.
This new format wasn’t just cooked up in the studio. GBH News Executive Editor Lee Hill says they polled communities from Roxbury and Mattapan to Brockton and Springfield about their desires for “Rooted.”
“We heard that we needed to be on different platforms, to be out of the studio and meeting with people in neighborhoods, and we heard the desire for not just timely news and analysis
but also a for a place to celebrate the joy in the Black experience,” Hill said.
In an episode posted on the “GBH News Rooted” YouTube page in late December, Alston frosts cupcakes in the Commonwealth Kitchen space of Sweet Teez, a nut-free bakery in Dorchester while chatting with the owner Teresa Thompson Maynard. In another, Alston asks folks on the street in Nubian Square how they’ll keep the peace at family gatherings during the holidays.
The new structure applies as much to production style as it does to content and viewing platforms. Dan Lothian, editor-in-chief of GBH News and “The World,” says the team is reimagining the filming style and taking this opportunity to flex creative muscles. They’re breaking away from traditional editing and sound bite formulas to create a more dynamic viewing experience.
“We want to, for lack of a better word, maybe be a little edgier,” said Lothian. “You’ll see some different camera styles in the things that we shoot. We want new voices that maybe have not been profiled in the past.”
Lothian and Alston say “GBH News Rooted” has been receiving a remarkably position reception. Even prior to the launch of the television program, a YouTube episode about the February 28 economic blackout received nearly 500,000 views with an engaging and constructive dialogue in the almost 3,000 comments on the video.
“GBH News Rooted” will debut on television April 8 and will air on GBH 2 on Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. It will repeat Fridays at 7:30 p.m. on GBH 44 and Sundays at 12:30 p.m. on GBH 2. The radio version will launch later this year.
Alston hopes the program will bring information, dialogue and joy into homes in Boston and beyond.
“In the national narrative, what we hear about Boston does not always reflect its Black communities,” said Alston. “It’s important that we have the people who have existed here for decades, for centuries, share their stories.”
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