Motivational speaker, social media host, and podcaster, Vicki Dillard, 46, is known as an advocate for independent news media and as an unapologetic voice for Black people. In a recent interview with The Final Call, Ms. Dillard shared her perspectives on the duty of Black people to find their own voices, the importance of passing knowledge to youth, and how unapologetic Black media is vital to the liberation of Black people in the U.S. and abroad.
With trust in the country’s corporate-controlled news media declining among those seeking unfiltered truth, Ms. Dillard is becoming a source of news and information for younger consumers. She said her life has been devoted to increasing people’s awareness of current events.
As a young girl in Mississippi, she knew that communication and sharing information would be a path she would eventually pursue. “That was just my natural, intuitive nature. I had a talk show called literally the Vicki Show when I was in elementary school,” she said.
When she was 11, a local pastor who appreciated her talent and skills provided her with a video camera and she was able to participate in a competition. Years later, she developed into one of the consistent voices speaking truth to power.
Ms. Dillard said from her childhood through today, national issues, political issues and other matters relevant to the Black Diaspora, often misrepresented or dismissed by corporate media, have been her primary focus of concern and the basis of her popularity. Her participation in Black America’s national discourse also reflects current patterns of younger people seeking alternative and different sources for information.
According to an October 14, 2024, article by Gallup.com titled: “Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low,” showed that between 2001–2024, trust in mass media dropped across all age groups between 18 to 65+ years of age. The polling data also revealed that the proportion of people aged 65 and older holding either “a great deal” or “a fair amount of trust” in mainstream media dropped from 56 percent to 43 percent, with the most significant decline, from 55 percent to 26 percent, among 18- to 29-year-olds. Favorable views toward corporate news media also fell among 30 to 49-year-olds from 53 percent to 26 percent, respectively.
A NiemanLab.org article titled “For the first time, social media overtakes TV as Americans’ top news source,” posted June 16, noted that traditional news sources are losing their influence in the United States.
“For the first time, social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news. The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,” the article’s authors write, adding, “overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.”
“Although social media and personality-based news are also on the rise in other countries, the changes are happening faster and with more impact in the United States,” the article continued.
With the changing landscape of how people consume news, Ms. Dillard emphasized the importance of continuing to share knowledge and information in more traditional formats. She agreed that living in a digital society has shortened people’s attention spans while increasing the rate and availability of information that is consumed.
Leading to what could be considered information overload, she also noted that high-paced societies still require strong critical thinking and literacy skills and that the duty to promote these rests with society’s elders. She said that older generations must lead by example to demand excellence from the younger generations.
Despite modern technology and the various ways people access information, reading books, newspapers, and other printed materials remains important for all generations, and writing is also essential, she explained.
“It (was) connected to me when I was growing up down South, my grandmother would make us from time to time, sit at the kitchen table and write in cursive,” Ms. Dillard explained. She said her family upbringing continuously promoted truth and Black excellence. “My grandmother was always writing and my grandfather had excellent penmanship. I think my family normalized that through their behavior and then they were very intentional about it,” she said.
Ms. Dillard suggests that Black communities, families, and individuals make time for Black youth to sit and review news stories relevant to their lives as Black people. She said that this approach contributes to their upliftment.
“Read the newspapers in front of them and have them point out what’s important to them,” Ms. Dillard insisted. “Everybody put their phones down and just read. I’d have someone stand up and read one particular article (with) no right or wrong answer. Just have someone give their feedback. So, what do you think about this?” she asked, using the reading of The Final Call newspaper as one example.
Ms. Dillard is also committed and dedicated to doing what she can to continue speaking about topics and issues ignored, downplayed or dismissed by corporate-controlled media.
Ms. Dillard told The Final Call that American mainstream reporting not only fails to provide adequate coverage on Western instigated conflicts in places such as Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, but she also declares its complicity with Israeli war crimes in the Gaza genocide through selective reporting, false equivalencies, and through the use of money that compromises both the ethics and morals of modern journalism.
“Establishment media, they’re just the mouthpiece,” Ms. Dillard insisted. “So, when they’re broadcasting something, there’s a particular thing that they’re seeding (and) for a reason.” Noting that producing a different mindset on a subject, such as turning a blind eye to genocide, is one of its many objectives, she explained.
“They want us to really be weak and so desensitized that when something catastrophic has happened, we’re not in the physical shape to change it.”