Ashley Allison, a Democratic political strategist and CNN commentator, said last week that she is acquiring The Root from G/O Media, a digital media holding company controlled by a private equity firm.
The Root, a digital platform for and about Black America, is returning to Black ownership thanks to Allison’s move. The former Obama White House official said she plans to invest in video content, build new partnerships with experts, and create in-person experiences for readers, according to CNN.
“This isn’t about making more content but rather about making meaning of this moment,” Allison said, describing a period “when journalism is under attack and audiences are seeking independent sources for news.”
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Allison founded her company, Watering Hole Media, last year, and The Root is its first acquisition. Terms of the deal are not yet known.
The Root was founded in early 2008 by Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and then-chairman of The Washington Post Company Donald E. Graham.
In 2015, it was acquired by Univision, a Spanish-language media company. It brought together a portfolio of online brands but later abandoned its plan and sold titles to Great Hill Partners, a private equity firm, in 2019, according to CNN.
G/O Media, which came to own The Root and other brands like The Onion and Kotaku, couldn’t grow as expected, and by last summer, The Root was the only brand left of G/O Media.
Gates has since commended Allison “for returning The Root to its roots.”
Allison, in a statement, said the website “has always been about preserving culture and creating clarity in a world full of distractions. Owning the power to tell our own stories is a rich tradition The Root is committed to upholding.”
Besides founding Watering Hole Media, Allison helped start the Turner Colony Group and became its CEO. Turner Colony Group provides strategic advice, consulting, and leadership development and training services, usually centered on campaigns and companies.
Allison also served as the National Coalitions Director for the 2020 Biden-Harris presidential campaign. She further worked as the deputy director and senior policy advisor for the Obama White House Office of Public Engagement, helping to run African-American outreach for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Her strategy led to a four percent increase in Black turnout from 2008 to 2012. She subsequently joined Enroll America in 2013 as the Director of Constituency and Partner Engagement where she came up with a national and state strategy that helped enroll 1.5 million people in “Obamacare.”
Today, she is experienced in advocacy, community building, crisis management, coalition building, and outreach, as reported by Harvard Political Review.
She said in an interview with the platform in 2022 that her passion for campaign strategy comes from her desire to do good, fight for justice, racial equity and be a public servant.
“One of the ways — there are many ways you can do that type of work — but one of the ways that I decided to do it was through campaigning because I wanted to work and elect people who were going to do that work while in public office and in government,” she told Harvard Political Review. “I’ve done this type of work in non-profits and just in movement, but I decided to join campaigns.”
“Really I worked on a lot of local campaigns before, but my first big, paid job was the Obama campaign. Obviously, he was a candidate of hope and change and historical nature, so he was the one who I was like ‘okay I’m going to change my career for.’”
Before entering politics, Allison was a high school special education teacher in Brooklyn, New York, who earned her master’s in education. She received her law degree with a specialty in public interest law focusing on voting and democracy, housing rights, and racial equity. She also worked as a freelance journalist covering local Brooklyn, NY news. Allison later became the Board Chair for the Color of Change PAC Board and a member of the Free Press Action Fund Board. In 2021, she was appointed a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics Fellow.
The CNN commentator loves to teach yoga and meditation to women of color in her free time.
