Can 2026 finally be the year Black-owned businesses are covered for their accomplishments, not just DEI? 

Over the past two years, a troubling trend has started to take shape in the media; for a large majority of journalists, DEI framing became the default for covering Black businesses.

What should be stories about innovation, resilience, market disruption, and leadership have increasingly been flattened into a single, repetitive narrative: DEI. Not the company’s business model. Not the founder’s vision or entrepreneur journey. Not the problem being solved or the customers being served. Just DEI. And it’s often framed through the lens of rollbacks, political backlash, or cultural controversy. 

This didn’t begin overnight, but in recent years and especially amid the political climate shaped by the Trump administration, it has accelerated to the point of absurdity.

Today, if a business is Black-owned, media coverage almost reflexively treats it as a DEI case study rather than a company. The founder becomes a symbol, success becomes secondary, and the story becomes predictable before the first paragraph is even finished.

One Narrative, Over and Over Again

If you listen closely to news interviews from 2024 until now between reporters and Black founders, nine times out of ten a pattern quickly emerges. The questions sound eerily similar. “How are DEI rollbacks affecting your business?” “What does the current political climate mean for Black entrepreneurship?” “How do you feel about corporate pullbacks from diversity initiatives?”

My company, Brennan Nevada Inc. New York City’s first and only Black-owned tech PR agency, has been able to witness this firsthand through my daily interactions and interviews with members of the media. I’ve prioritized spending more time and conducting the necessary due diligence that preps my clients on how to engage, navigate, or just not participate in the same DEI obsessed interview. 

With these interviews between journalists and Black founders, the most important questions often go unasked, like “What problem does this business solve?” Or “What makes it competitive? “How did the founder build it?” And “What lessons can other entrepreneurs learn from its success?” And when coverage does come out, it typically leads with the current administration’s DEI rollbacks, and less like profiles of thriving companies. The rhetoric reflects commentary on diversity politics, with the business itself serving as a backdrop rather than the subject.

When Black-Owned Becomes a Category, Not a Credential

The underlying issue is subtle but very damaging: Black-owned has become synonymous with DEI in media framing. That equation is flawed and needs to be reworked. A Black-owned business is not inherently a diversity initiative or a political statement. It is first and foremost a business built by someone who just so happens to be Black. That’s it. 

Yet most media coverage today increasingly suggests that Black success exists primarily within the context of diversity efforts, and worse, that it is somehow dependent on them. When DEI programs face scrutiny or rollbacks, Black businesses are often portrayed as collateral damage rather than as resilient enterprises capable of thriving on merit, strategy, and execution. 

This framing does a disservice not only to Black founders, but to readers and audiences as well. It robs them of real business insight and reinforces the idea that Black success must always be explained through an external lens. 

The media tends to shift its tone to what’s currently happening in the cultural moment, especially when towards Black businesses. Five years ago during George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement that happened around Juneteenth in 2020, the media positively highlighted a lot more Black businesses alongside brands that pushed for DEI to address systemic barriers. 

The Cost of Poor Storytelling

This media obsession with DEI is getting old really fast. It reduces complex entrepreneurial journeys into political soundbites. And it quietly undermines the credibility of Black founders by implying that their success is inseparable from institutional support rather than personal vision and capability.

I’m not saying this is being done on purpose, because even well-intentioned coverage can fall into this trap, and oftentimes does. When every story leads with race rather than results, representation becomes reductive instead of empowering.

The irony is that truly compelling stories are being missed. There are Black founders building category-defining products, solving real-world problems, scaling companies, and creating jobs; stories that deserve the same depth and seriousness afforded to any other entrepreneur.

But those stories require more work. They require curiosity beyond a headline. They require journalists to move past the easiest narrative available.

What’s Next for Black Stories in 2026

As media organizations reassess their role in shaping public discourse, 2026 presents an opportunity for a long-overdue reset.

What would it look like to cover Black businesses the same way we cover all businesses, by focusing on innovation, leadership, and success first? What if founders were allowed to be experts in their industries rather than spokespeople for diversity debates? What if success stories were told as success stories?

None of this means ignoring race or pretending systemic inequities don’t exist. That’s not what I’m saying since that context absolutely matters. But it’s my belief that context should inform a story not consume it.

A Black-owned business should not automatically trigger a DEI narrative. And Black entrepreneurship should not be treated as a subplot in a political storyline. If the media wants to tell better stories in 2026, it needs to start by asking Black founders better questions, and by remembering that Black businesses are not symbols.

We are enterprises. We are innovations. And we deserve to be covered as such.