About us
A Platform of Positivity
Better Black News was birthed from the frustration of negative images of African American people and the politics of conformity.
After gaining a journalism degree from the University of Central Oklahoma, I, Jillian Bray formerly known as Jillian Whitaker, went into the world excited and eager to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a news anchor, but I soon felt that dream slipping through my fingers.
The pressure to look a certain way and tell a certain story was weighing heavy on me. I felt that the dream I had, no longer fit the reality I desired to live. Instead of compromising myself and my community, I created a platform to highlight my community while informing people of things they can use in their daily lives.
Welcome to Better Black News, where we encourage you to Be Better.
Dear viewers,
First of all, thank you for supporting us since 2015! I cannot believe it's been that long. Wow!
First of all, thank you for supporting Better Black News since 2015! I cannot believe it’s been that long. Wow! The pandemic kind of threw us for a doozy with a lot of changes and shifts happening with our staff, but we prevailed!
If you have been following us on social media and keeping up, you know that I am a wife along with being a Boy Mom of two, now! I still don’t believe it myself sometimes and then I hear these tiny people yell, “Mommy can I play on Xbox now” or “Mommy can I have a snack??!” Once I hear that, reality sets in and lets me know I am indeed in real life. During the pandemic, we had to part ways with our current camera crew. This left us in a tricky predicament because Better Black News normally operated with a video crew alongside myself, the chief news reporter.
After a couple of years, I felt I had to do something about the lack thereof. I dusted off my skills that I learned as an undergrad at University of Central Oklahoma and decided to become an official multimedia journalist. What does a multimedia journalist do? They are responsible for deciding which stories to cover, shooting the actual story, editing, and reporting on camera. In short, they are responsible for everything instead of just reporting the news. Our last season in the year 2020, was recorded all on Zoom because, you know, the world was shut down. I HATED it.
I prefer to be in person with the community. I love personal interaction. Interviewing through a screen was rough, but yet we prevailed, once again.
I’m happy to announce Better Black News is back! Better than ever! We are back to in person interviews.
Thank you for sticking with us through the changes and through an entire pandemic! Feel free to leave us a shout, comment, suggestion, or just show us love on our social medias!
