The Plug, created in 2016 as the first daily newsletter centered on Black visionaries in technology, launched a renovated website with smartphone optimization, a customizable dashboard and a focus on ease of access to breaking news analysis and the online community.
“The accessibility and usability of the tpinsights.com platform has been completely transformed. It’s a totally different user experience than we’ve had in the past,” said The Plug founder Sherrell Dorsey in the press release. “We have a much more robust feedback loop on this site.”
Dorsey created The Plug as an alternative to the shallow reporting on Black entrepreneurs in mainstream tech news outlets. She found coverage of Black tech innovators lazy with an overreliance on “Black poverty or rags-to-riches” narratives, as she wrote in an article for Columbia Journalism Review.
While scrolling on her phone in bed, dissatisfied with yet another disappointing story, Dorsey knew things needed to change.
“There’s a level of intellectual laziness and dishonesty that we have to mitigate,” Dorsey told Forbes. “The Plug is really trying to transform that, it’s really trying to transform who we call genius, and help to identify the power players that have always been here, and many who are up and coming, but who largely don’t get the kind of prowess and recognition they deserve.”
The Plug first launched five years ago as a daily newsletter of curated stories on emerging Black-owned tech businesses and the leaders behind them.
Dorsey debuted her original reporting in 2018, fueled by her background in computation journalism at Columbia, according to a recent Nieman Lab article.
She set out to fill the need for inventive, data-driven journalism covering the world of Black innovation, and eventually opened a research wing to “build a Black Bloomberg.” In April, Dorsey announced The Plug’s syndication in Bloomberg, as part of the Bloomberg Terminal service.
The Plug also collaborated with Vice’s tech-based magazine Motherboard, secured brand partnerships and launched a weekly newsletter exclusively covering tech innovation at HBCUs.
The Plug offers a subscription-based membership with benefits including weekly reports, members-only events and more. The daily newsletter and a selection of articles are also available for non-members.
