It’s no surprise that web giant Huffington Post is launching a site for blacks. The Washington Post has “The Root,” and NBC has “The Grio,” and HuffPo almost certainly wants in on the kind of ad dollars black audiences can attract. What struck me as both odd and possibly promising were Sheila Johnson’s comments on the venture:

“In all of this digital space, the African-American voice is really falling off the radar screen. We’re on other radar screens, with other digital sites, which is wonderful. But I really wanted to bring the real news, the storytelling — to really bring back the voice of the black community on some relevant news and views. We’re going to be able to fill that void.”

Johnson, who sold Black Entertainment Television to Viacom back in 2000, is the co-backer of Global Black. Based on Johnson’s comments she is either not very familiar with the web or she deliberately exaggerated. The black voice in digital media has not fallen off the radar screen, in fact it has grown exponentially.

Both the number of smaller blog sites and bigger corporate-backed sites that target blacks have increased. Many sites have been mainstays for a long time from the Electronic Urban Report to AOL Black Voices. With other sites like The Loop 21, Post Bourgie, 365politics, RollingOut, Jack and Jill and countless others, to say that the black voice has fallen off the radar screen simply isn’t true. It’s more accurate to say that there’s not a central location that blacks turn to read and discuss issues of relevance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though.

On a positive note, Johnson emphasized what she believes is a lack of “real news” and storytelling in the black online sphere which I interpret to mean “high quality reporting and commentary.” On this, we can agree. There is lots of room for HuffPo to up the ante on quality with Global Black. One of my biggest gripes—especially when it comes to the bigger sites that can afford to be picky—is what passes for good writing.

If HuffPo approaches this the right way and seeks to hire and publish a diverse range of great writers they could have a massively successful venture on their hands. If they’re going to accept posts from anyone who has a twitter following and can write a race or gender baiting headline, then, well, Global Black isn’t going to bring anything new to the table and could very well be lost in the crowd. If Johnson and Huffington are truly uninformed about the makeup of the black websphere I suggest they take a good hard look and make a genuine effort to do something different.

I’m hesitant to get my hopes up–both Johnson and Huffington have a strange relationship with quality content. BET’s history is fraught with bad programming decisions and the more popular the Huffington Post has grown, the more good commentary has been swept aside in favor of tabloid fodder.

Right now, the most popular black web site is Media Take Out which boasts 2.8 million visits a month. Not far behind it are sites like Bossip, Young Black and Fabulous, Necole Bitchie and a host of other gossip rags. Adding another one to the bunch isn’t going to fulfill any promise of “real news.”

With Johnson and Huffington as backers, if Global Black can stay ahead of the curve and out of the mud, there’s no reason that it can’t become the primary place for so-called black news online.

I’m interested in hearing thoughts on Global Black’s potential, will it be a success? Do we need another black-focused site? What should it entail?

PS: I’d like to thank @iluveblackwomen and @lyneka for letting me spy on their twitter conversation about Global Black. It helped me formulate many of my thoughts.