Professor Venise Wagner: Reporter Covered San Francisco's Black Community in 1990s

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER -- As a staff writer at the San Francisco Examiner 20 years ago, Venise Wagner was one of the only reporters assigned to cover the black community. That’s because the newspaper was the only one at the time with beat reporters for ethnic and gay and lesbian communities. The Examiner sat down with Wagner in her office at San Francisco State University — where she is an associate professor of Journalism and former chair of the department — for a conversation abut a changing newspaper, city and black community. Do you think the black community is being adequately covered here in the city? “Absolutely not. ... Who’s looking at African Americans in the schools, who’s holding the school board accountable for how African Americans are doing here in the city? Who are those that are left and what allows them to stay here and why did they choose to stay here in San Francisco?”