“I had tears streaming down my face,” she recalls with a laugh. “He kept saying, ‘Calm down, it’s all right. Take your time.’”
But did she get the shot?

“Wouldn’t you know it? My camera didn’t work!” Wade shakes her head. “Thankfully, this man in the audience threw me his camera and I ended up getting a shot of Bill, a shot of Hillary and a shot of them together.”

It’s that kind of tenacity and love for what she does that has turned an accountant from Cambridge into a publisher now serving a worldwide audience. And she did it the hard way.

A Cambridge native who lived in the city until three years ago, when she moved to West Medford, Wade never thought she’d ever be a writer when she was a kid. Although she took creative writing classes in college, they were electives and were not part of her business degree curriculum.

She even graduated with a degree in accounting from Burdette College.

But the writing bug wouldn’t stop biting and eventually, Wade decided journalism was a career path she wanted to follow.

“I ended up a reporter for a small black newspaper until I got an abundance of work experience,” she recalls, on a sunny afternoon in late October. “That was the early ‘80s. Eventually, I took my reporter experience and my accounting experience and I went to work for the Beacon Press as an operations manager.”

Wade admits she found the work exciting, with so many authors moving in and out of the publishing house. And she would have been content to stay, but business slowed down following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and layoffs were on the horizon.

“I got another job as a controller for the Jewish Advocate,” she recalls. “Somehow, I went from being the controller to eventually being the assistant editor. I made a lot of decisions about what went into a Jewish newspaper.”

Wade says she felt very welcome at the Jewish Advocate, never feeling discriminated against because of her race. Ironically, it was her religion that created tension.

“At the time, I was a Roman Catholic woman making high-end decisions,” she says. “But I can honestly say I am here today because of my experience there. I learned every aspect of the business, from the news to advertising. I had a hand in everything.”
And, Wade admits, she wasn’t daunted by any of it.

“I take a challenge as an exciting adventure,” Wade says. “I welcome a challenge. I don’t run from it. I believe it motivates me. The bigger the challenge, the more it motivates me.”

An idea is born

And then Wade woke up one morning with the idea that if she could serve the Jewish community in her capacity at the newspaper, why not do the same for the African American community?

“I asked myself where I could get black news and who was talking about our community?” she recalls. “I started looking for magazines and newspapers who were serving the African American community and I found that there weren’t a lot out there. You have to remember this was the mid-‘90s.”
Wade started getting a feel for what she wanted to create.

“I found that what was developing in my head didn’t exist,” she recalls. “I didn’t want to be a newspaper or a magazine so it had to be a combination of both, that’s why I call the New England Informer a newsmagazine.”

With the same determination that got her through school, Wade quit her position at the Jewish Advocate and took a 9-to-5 accounting job which would allow her the time she needed to begin work on cultivating her newsmagazine

“My goal was supposed to be the typical American dream: an education, a good job that you could retire in, a house in the suburbs, a husband and 1.5 kids,” she says. “But I realized that with all my experience, I had moved beyond that and really grown. It made me change my goals. I wanted to go into the publishing field, I mean really wanted it.”

With the publishing field more stable at the time, Wade started looking for African American writers and experts to fill her pages — and was rebuffed.

“I contacted them and got a null to zero response,” she says. “I was mortified. Actually, find a word beyond shocked and I was it. Here I wanted to bring news to the African American community and yet, I didn’t get the support from the African American community.”
Wade was upset.

“Actually, I was angry,” she says. “We were moving into the 2000-era and I thought the black community would reach out and support us, but when I got out there, I found people who said they were too busy or had the attitude of ‘I got mine, now you go get yours.’”

So, Wade turned to her childhood friends from her days at St. Peter’s School in Cambridge.

“I had friends with connections in certain professions who knew how to open doors,” she says. “But these were white writers, doctors, politicians, artists. I had a lot of people, but they were of the Caucasian race. I didn’t care.”

The paper hits the stands
With writers — all of whom are volunteers — on board, the New England Informer was born.
Although with no funding.

“The Small Business Administration wouldn’t give me a loan because I was a great big business risk,” Wade says with a sigh. “Everything I did, I did out of pocket. Still do.”

It didn’t stop Wade. She put out her first monthly newspaper, distributing throughout Massachusetts and into Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Her first 50,000 copies sold out.

“I didn’t print 50,000 all at once,” she laughs. “I did them as needed. I had a good printer and he let me pay as I went along.”

The feedback, she says, was tremendous, giving her hope that indeed, this was a product the African American community needed and wanted. And Wade continued to work hard to make sure the news got to its readers.

“I dropped them off at salons, restaurants, senior centers, municipal buildings, anywhere I thought people would read them,” she says. “I would even get on the trains and drop them. I didn’t end up getting a lot of subscriptions, but I did get good feedback online.”

Then a blessing. The Democratic National Convention was in Boston.

“I was in touch with Rep. Gloria Fox and I was able to get my newspaper distributed at the DNC,” she says. “That’s how I got outside of Massachusetts. A lot of people from different states picked it up because it was in their gift bags. That’s when I decided I wanted to develop an online version. But in 2009, the print version will be back.”

With the Internet exploding, Wade took the information from her print version and expanded it online, going from five writers to 40 who specialize in all sorts of different areas, from health to careers and beyond.

As the online version has changed, Wade has found a bevy of devoted readers, not only from throughout the United States but stretching into Germany, China, Russia, Italy and the Netherlands.

“I didn’t think there were really a lot of African Americans on the Web,” she says. “But they were all getting online.”

Wade went on to develop her Web site, going online several years ago and constantly updating the site. She even offers unique features such as a Missing Persons section, which features missing children and links back to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an organization she now collaborates with.

Future goals

Although she’s been successful beyond her imagination, Wade admits she’s still having a difficult time being taken seriously as a media source. She says she often finds herself standing outside watching the mainstream media time and time again getting stories that would also serve her readers.

And she finds that being an African American woman, publishing her own online newsmagazine and soon to be print magazine, really doesn’t interest the mainstream media either.

“A black newscaster who is no longer in this state once told me that a TV station would rather do a story on a dog with a hurt leg than an African American working to empower her own community,” she says. “I set out to prove him wrong, but I can’t. He has proven to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that not many people care about what I am actually doing for the African American community and that’s sad.”

But Wade doesn’t care. Right now, she’s a bit busy — both getting her book out and becoming acclimated to her new home.
Book first.

“I wrote a book about my journey in getting the New England Informer started,” she says. “It’s on its way to the editors and then it will be published. It’s called ‘Trepidations: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Black America.’”
Medford next.

“I’m not saying this just because I’m talking to a Medford newspaper, but I really love living in West Medford,” she says. “I thought it was a bit of a closed community, but when you meet someone, you are very welcomed. I really love it here.”
And the future? What’s next for Doreen Wade?

“A cable show and a radio show,” she says, a gleam in her eye. “After January, I will be working on getting the radio show. I’m waiting to get approval now.”

As for the New England Informer, Wade’s got some plans.

“No comment,” she laughs. “Actually, I have ideas. I want to take the print version in a very different direction. I can’t leave the old format as it was. I have to bring in new technology. It’s going to be very exciting and challenging.”