Los Angeles, CA–Nash Baker is an integral and often overlooked part of L.A’s Black media landscape. He has been dedicated to providing Black Los Angeles real time information on gun violence happening in our communities for two decades. If anything, I hope reading his story really reinforces the importance of us supporting Black media. Not as a slogan, or something trendy to say, but as a way of life. Our sustainability depends on it.
Much appreciation to the Black woman journalist who saw the importance of Nash’s story, while on a gun violence beat for The Guardian. I was also interviewed for the article which is linked below.
South LA’s ‘daycrawler’: the man who’s captured the aftermath of gun violence for 20 years
“For South Central natives like Tina Sampay, Baker has been a go-to outlet for years. She started following A Million Hits from the early days to keep up with what was happening in her hometown while she was away at college in northern California. “He was the only one doing that type of work within South Central and other inner-cities,” she said. “I would hear about shootings here and there but It was hard to find [more] information. But, Nash was the one who had his boots on the ground and was going to these places.”
Since coming back to Los Angeles, Sampay has founded her own news media outlet under the name Slauson Girl, gaining nearly 40,000 Instagram followers with daily news posts about topics ranging from celebrities to local crime and politics. She first met Baker when she was driving through her neighborhood and came across a shooting scene where Baker was also filming, and hopes that Baker will become an outlet of record and play an integral role in the larger Black media ecosystem in LA county.
“For the level of work he has done, he should be compensated and have his own van and production space,” Sampay continued about Baker. “If we as Black media are not able to compete at the same level as other journalists with more resources then we’ll have to keep allowing people to exploit our communities for views.”
Photograph: Abené Clayton/The Guardian
