The Daily Voice sets sail

It's been a long time coming, but today we are officially launching this web site.

It started last year as just an idea and slowly worked its way into reality. On Monday, February 4, we hung out our shingle on the Internet with no fanfare and a goal to test the market for a black news web site.

After five months of research, user comments and feedback, we're ready to go live with the site today. Although it's still not perfect, we've worked out many of the major technical bugs we had when we first opened in February.

If you've been visiting the site in the past few months, you've probably noticed some of the high profile contributors we've enlisted. Former Essence magazine editor Diane Weathers, poet Maya Angelou, Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree, former NBA player John Amaechi, nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, Harvard University chaplain Peter Gomes, actor Isaiah Washington, political analyst Keli Goff, National Education Association President Reg Weaver, and best-selling authors Omar Tyree and Crystal McCrary Anthony have all written for us during our startup phase.

We've spent the past five months developing a core group of writers, bloggers and contributors who we hope will make the site timely, provocative and interactive. But we've also discovered that the conversation can't work one way. We want you to be a part of the community here, so in the coming months we will be introducing new features that put much of the control over the content of the site in your hands.

We started with a simple idea. Our plan was not, and is not, to re-create The New York Times or CNN for black people. Instead, this site will serve as an aggregator of news and opinion targeting the African American community. 

It's also important to let you know what the site is and is not. Those of you who know me know I'm a Democrat. But despite my own political leanings, this site will not cater only to Democratic Barack Obama supporters. That would be kinda boring. We have tried very hard to recruit Republicans and Independents to write for us and share their perspectives, and we will continue to expand on these voices in the future.

I expect you will agree with some of the contributors from time to time. If you don't, then we haven't done our job. I can tell you that I don't agree with many of the writers who we've published here too. But that's not the purpose. The purpose is to provoke a conversation, not to force unanimity of opinion.

You should also know that this site is not just about politics. Yes, I know, there's been a lot of politics here the past five months. In this historic election year with the possibility of electing a black president, it would be difficult not to spend a significant amount of time discussing the presidential race. But we will be covering other news as well.

We plan to cover arts and entertainment, business news, sports, spirituality issues, and other topics as we move forward. Some of the news will be hard news about politics and issues and some will be soft pop culture fluff and human interest stories. We've learned from our trial period that some people like that and some don't. Nevertheless, we plan to offer it here anyway. We want this site to offer something for many different types of people.

You should know that we have recently begun a special partnership with the BET J network, our founding sponsor. In the next few weeks, BET J will begin airing television advertisements for The Daily Voice, so be on the lookout as The Daily Voice hits the tube.

Finally, the publisher, Malcolm Harris, and I have a favor to ask. As we move to broaden our readership and expand the voices represented on the site, we'd like you to help us out. If you would, we would appreciate it if you would please take a moment to forward this message to your friends, family, colleagues, and others. Let them know The Daily Voice is a great new resource that will only grow better and stronger as they participate. 

We're all very excited about this new venture, and I believe the best is yet to come!