Welcome to "50 Cent A Word: Diary of a Freed Black Journalist"

John Fountain Launches Column and Writing on Substack Online Platform

John W. Fountain, pictured here, is a 2021-22 Fulbright Scholar to Ghana, a nationally-award-winning columnist, tenured full professor of journalism at Roosevelt University and former New York Times national correspondent and staff writer at the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. He is author of five books,

By John W. Fountain

Dear Friend,

I’m back. Actually, I never left. I have simply revamped. Swapped spaces as a writer. Traded places for what I predict will be an exciting journey that I hope in some ways we will take together. Welcome to my digital home.

I am a journalistic storyteller who seeks to shine the light on those stories most often missed or ignored by the mainstream American press. Most recently, I did so as a weekly columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. We parted ways in November 2022, after I would not agree to an edict from the executive editor at that newspaper’s to modify a column I had written, or else. I resigned.

As a columnist and writer, every word I write must be my own, unfiltered, unencumbered and unblemished by someone else’s jaded perspective. This is particularly important to me as a Black male journalist. For our perspectives, in the words of a friend and himself a longtime Black journalist: “With rare and notable exceptions, Black perspectives in America journalism are regarded much the same as Black History Month: Every now and then for special occasions, but not all the time and rarely unfiltered.”  For more about my Sun-Times exit, read here.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Indeed in an age of dwindling newspaper circulation, newsroom buyouts, cutbacks and turmoil, my exit stage left from daily newspapers, where in one capacity or another, I have contributed as a writer since 1986, now seems the perfect opportunity to launch my own ship. The Internet has given independent writers like me both the means to distribute and reach readers in ways we once might never have imagined.

To explore in subject and texture stories beyond the status quo news approach and view that dominates mainstream publications and that too often eliminates human stories about the poor and marginalized. To flow freely. To operate beyond the limited, too often warped view of editors, administrators and publishers—most of them middle-aged white men—who dictate coverage. The Substack platform makes this exponentially possible and is now home to this new adventure that is, in reality, a continuation of my writing journey.

I am free. Finally. As a Black journalist. As a practitioner of penning the human story. As someone who seeks to capture and write those stories as I see them, and as they are told to me—a highly trained journalistic professional whose lifelong passion is to tell a more perfect story. But I need you.

Good reporting and writing do not come without costs. A good deal of what appears here on my Substack will be available to non-paid subscribers. Readers may subscribe for as low as $7 a month, giving you access to subscriber content, including my twice monthly column, special investigative reporting projects and other digital content.

Our most loyal readers may also become “Founding Members.” To do so, you would subscribe at any amount higher than the regular plans. (*Please see suggested rate listed.) As a founding member, you will be recognized on the site for your expressed commitment to the efforts to launch the “50 Cent A Word” platform on Substack and to support and ensure my continued work and efforts to produce independent journalism that focuses on the human condition.

Founding members receive all the benefits of regular membership. By becoming a Founding member, you will have access to special projects, accompanying multimedia and other content. You will also receive a complimentary autographed copy of one of my books. And founding members will receive exclusive invitations to events sponsored by me and/or my publishing company WestSide Press or my new not-for-profit FountainWorks

Why 50 Cent A Word?

Frankly, 50 cent a word is what the Sun-Times paid me over the 13 years of writing an award-winning column. Not a penny more. And not a dime’s reimbursement for travel or expenses, or in compensation for numerous photographs. This served as a reminder to me that I was never in it for the money. That writing was never about me but about the story. Always the story.

Growing up in my grandparent’s True Vine Church on Chicago’s West Side, I learned to see the blessing in the storms of life. To use my gifts to seek to make the world a better place. To strive to see the faintest light even in the darkest of circumstances, to work and to rise. And to remember that the once accursed thing can become the very thing through which one may receive bountiful blessings.

The phrase, “50 Cent A Word,” reminds me of why I write. It helps me remember that my words, my perspective, my voice and pen unfiltered by some outsider’s perspective in my pursuit of telling stories that matter are worth more than gold. It is a reminder of my journey through American journalism and that alas I am a free Black journalist.

I hope you will support me on this journey. Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

JOHN

#JusticeforJelaniDay

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com

The collage features a few of the columns Fountain wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times over the past 13 years for which he won numerous awards.