The secret to successfully taking over a family business isn’t in one’s last name, genetic makeup, or simply observing operations from the sidelines; it takes passion, determination, closely examining all aspects of the company and years of hard work. Just ask Denise Rolark Barnes, who has spent most of her life working for The Washington Informer and 31 years as publisher, about the necessary commitment and sacrifices it takes to run a family business.
“My dad started the paper when I was 9 years old and [The Informer] is where I spent my summers,” Rolark Barnes said. “And he put me to work.”
“Let’s say I hadn’t been there in a year, at the beginning of that next summer, my job was to write down every ad that was published in the newspaper, the page number, the size of the ad, and how much that ad cost,” she explained.
Even as a young person, Rolark Barnes was efficient in the newsroom, quickly completing assignments allotted to take the majority of the summer in a few days, and being tasked with a lot of various responsibilities. After ads, she moved on to subscriptions, adding her own youthful innovation to the duty.
“We didn’t have computers then, so the labels for the subscriptions were done on a typewriter. And so my father wanted me to type enough labels for 52 weeks—each one of the subscribers— and that’s when I discovered carbon paper,” she said laughing.
It was during her summers as a little girl at The Informer, then headquartered in downtown D.C., where Rolark Barnes not only learned about operations around the newsroom, but also the importance of engaging with the community, particularly when she made daily treks to the bank to make deposits.
“My trips to the bank normally took about two hours because I knew people,” Rolark Barnes recalled. “And so every day, I’m almost playing a politician. I’m going up and down Seventh Street just saying ‘hi’ to people and having conversations. Those are my earliest memories of working here, probably until I was about 15 or 16.”
However, Rolark Barnes wasn’t set on a professional career with The Informer after secondary school.
”I went to Hampton Institute at the time (now Hampton University) and majored in political science. My plan was to go to law school. I had no plans at all to work for the newspaper,” she said.
Then, she changed her major to mass media, and shortly after, took a close examination of what was happening in the United States and world.
“I realized I needed to be back in D.C. where the heartbeat of the news was taking place,” Rolark Barnes continued. “I came back to Howard University and as a student at Howard School of Communication, was working at the newspaper.”
Through college, Rolark Barnes remained dedicated to The Informer, learning all she could to take back to the publication. She then developed more of her leadership chops in law school.
“I became the editor of Howard University’s law school newspaper and it was at that point when I realized that I really like this business. And so I finished law school in 1980 and started working with my dad at the paper,” she explained.
With Dr. Rolark busy with other responsibilities, as he was also founder of United Black Fund, Rolark Barnes often found herself taking on multiple leadership duties once she began working with The Informer full time. However, she transitioned from supportive daughter and employee to publisher after her father’s death in 1994.
Now 70, Rolark Barnes has helped the weekly publication grow from a three-person staff, with unpaid writers and a strong mission, to a leading multimedia company with a dedicated, talented staff who deliver reliable news daily across multiple platforms.
With more than three decades of publishing under her belt, Rolark Barnes has certainly worked hard to continue and further her father’s mission. She keeps her father’s famous 10 words, “if it is to be, it is up to me,” as a driving force for The Informer.
Celebrating 60 years of publishing, The Informer is a strong source for storytelling and journalism that remains dedicated to its cause of uplifting, educating, empowering and informing African Americans not only in the District, but with digital technology, the nation and world.
“It’s staying true to who we are as a publication that serves the Black community—although all of our readers aren’t Black, but that is our focus and who we cover,” Rolark Barnes said about sustaining a business for decades. “And being able to take all the tools that are available to us and monetize those tools and still find a way to sustain ourselves.”
Larry Lee Looks Back at Power of Six Decades of Publishing
Like Rolark Barnes, Larry Lee, publisher of The Sacrament Observer, watched the ins and outs of newspaper publishing throughout his life, with his late father as founder of the now 62-year-old publication.
“My story is not unlike a lot of other publishers except that I literally grew up in the business. The paper is older than I am,’ Lee told The Informer. “And so probably the earliest memories are me being a little kid in the newsroom and the office probably causing mischief. I tended to be a little prankster as a kid.”
While jumping out of corners to scare staff was fun, it was the family time that Lee cherished the most in his early days at The Observer.
“Being around the family is really the thing that probably stands out more than anything, because we really were a family business. My dad and my mom ran the newspaper, but my grandmother worked there. I had cousins, aunts, uncles and brothers that all worked in the newsroom. So it was a family place,” he said. “It’s a place where we all went and had family memories.”
Lee, the youngest of three boys, also spent significant time throughout his adolescence working with the paper and soaking in all the excitement of the bustling world of journalism and publishing. His mother and father, who died in 2013 and 2019, respectively, worked to get all of his brothers involved in the newspaper and, for Lee, the family business was appealing.
“I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s and newspapering was a big deal. It was an industry that was very exciting to be a part of and to watch,” he said. “So I think that was something that was very attractive to me as a young person.”
Then, when it was time for post-secondary education, Lee — unlike Rolark Barnes — went to college knowing from the beginning that he would eventually be joining the family business.
“There was a family meeting that my parents had with me when I was about 18,” he said. “They sat me down and asked me if I thought I would be interested in coming back after college to be a part of the family business. And I naively said ‘yes,’ because I didn’t want to see anything happen to the business.”
This conversation gave Lee purpose. He went to San Jose State to learn all the things he could in order to help his family newsroom continue to thrive post-graduation and once he assumed leadership roles.
Lee also worked for The Portland Oregonian and he said his colleagues there even said: “You’re going to take this work back to your family business. Ultimately, that’s exactly what he did.
“I came back in 1997 and worked alongside my parents and officially ascended to publisher in 2015,” Lee told The Informer.
Ten years later, Lee has continued his father’s vision, finding innovative ways of furthering his work and mission through digital news and programming, community engagement and more. In 2023, Lee won Publisher of the Year with the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the trade association with more than 200 Black-owned publications as members, and garnered several honors in awards categories throughout the evening, showcasing the breadth of the media outlet’s work and coverage.
For Lee, keeping an institution like The Observer thriving is major motivation.
“I do say we celebrate every year but looking at those milestones of 60, 65, 70, and 75, that’s part of what gets me up every day,” Lee explained, emphasizing the importance of the work and mission of the Black Press. “Could you imagine having a business that has been serving the community consistently for 60, 70, 80 years? That’s quite an achievement.”
Lee said he is inspired by Rolark Barnes’ longtime dedication to publishing, having watched and worked closely with her as a fellow member of NNPA and Word in Black— a consortium of 10 Black-owned publications founded during the COVID-19 pandemic and height of Black Lives Matter movement.
Not only does he appreciate the innovative work she’s done with The Informer, but that she’s encouraged the next generation to join the family business, as both of her sons work with the publication and are adding their own visionary leadership.
“Looking at The Informer at 60 years with three generations of veteran leadership within the organization is a tremendous achievement,” he said.
Next Generation of the Family Business, Looking Ahead
Before Lafayette Barnes IV became publisher of the WI Bridge, he and his younger brother Desmond “DB Bantino” Barnes, were running around the newsroom of The Washington Informer as their mother oversaw daily operations.
“Being born into the paper, initially I started out as, perhaps, a pest around the office,” he said.
Both ever creative to this day, the brothers would transform The Informer’s newsroom from an office space to a fun place.
“I remember balling up pieces of paper and shooting them in trash cans as I ran around the office of The Washington Informer as a young child,” Desmond Barnes, digital newsletter manager, told The Informer.
For the young Barnes boys, it wasn’t all play, they were put to work as well and began to appreciate nuances of the news business.
“I started my first job with The Informer doing deliveries all around the city with a route that took about five hours to finish,” said Desmond Barnes, 37. “Eventually as I grew more skills, I was able to help in other areas such as video editing, social media and digital marketing.”
In addition to managing the digital newsletters, the younger Barnes brother, who is also a musician and producer, wrote the catchy theme song for The Washington Informer’s video platform WIN-TV.
The older brother also worked his way round the newsroom before starting The Bridge in 2015, which marks a decade this year.
“[I was] gaining interest through basically osmosis— observing the photographers, seeing the cool pictures…. And eventually I started to delve into photography, just in my personal time, and learn about photography through folks at the paper,” the WI Bridge publisher told The Informer. “And then that grew into me freelancing as a photographer and videographer, and throwing events and just creating my own world with the skills that I was learning at the paper.”
Then came time for the eldest Barnes brother to forge his own path with The Bridge, a fun, fresh, millennial publication that is not only informative, but aesthetically pleasing.
The Bridge is more than a publication — it’s a lifestyle brand, hosting sold-out events throughout the nation’s capital, covering happenings internationally and offering information about fashion, influencers and important cultural events in the District.
Having attended Howard University as a marketing major and working for and with companies outside of the family business prepared Barnes to bring back the information he’s learned to The Informer and Bridge.
“The Bridge I think of as like a prototyping spacing for ideas that The Informer might be interested in, or ideas that I have that might need some proof of before I introduce them to The Informer,” the 39-year-old publisher said before touting some of The Bridge’s accomplishments, such as a strong social media strategy and engaging video content.
Barnes IV is proud to be part of The Informer’s 60-year legacy.
“[The Informer] has created such things as community trust and access. We are an authority when it comes to the Black voice and reaching the entire audience of the DMV- not just African Americans,” he said. “Having 60 years of experience in business, there are so many gems that we’ve been able to collect over time. So it’s been a treat to be able to be exposed to that.”
For the Barnes family, keeping The Informer thriving has truly been an all-hands-on-deck passion and approach. With more than four decades of support for the paper, Lafayette Barnes, Rolark Barnes’ husband and the brothers’ dad, has also been instrumental in connecting The Informer with local and National communities. He is now director of WIN-Africa, a subset of The Informer that covers news across the African Diaspora.
As a longtime publisher, Rolark Barnes has been working to pass down gems to her sons and other staff in hopes of sustaining the business for the next 60 years and beyond.
While there are some things she remains steadfast about, such as printing a hard copy paper until it is impossible to do so, Rolark Barnes looks forward to the evolution of The Informer.
“I am listening to Lafayette, Desmond, and the younger staff in the newsroom,” Rolark Barnes said, “and considering their vision because that’s what will direct us as we move forward.”
Looking ahead, the WI Bridge publisher said he plans to follow the ever-changing trends in news to help keep The Informer thriving for years to come.
“We’re going to continue to do our best to tell the story and represent the communities that we work with. We’re also going to continue to embrace technology and discover the best ways to reach our audience,” Barnes explained. “I hope that for the next 60 years we continue to embrace our community and bring our community into our business more and more.”