The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Ashley Allison On Acquiring 'The Root', Cultural Impact, The Root 100 List + More

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Ashley Allison On Acquiring 'The Root', Cultural Impact, The Root 100 List. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Wake your ass up. You're all finished or y'all's done? Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy. Just hilarious. Sholomaine Nagai. We are the breakfast club. We got a special guest in the building.

Yes, indeed. We have Ashley Allison. Welcome. Welcome. How are you feeling this morning? I feel really good. I'm excited to be back. Happy to have you back.

That's right. Congratulations on. acquiring the route. Yes, and I have something I want to congratulate you all on as well. Okay. So today we are announcing the Route 100. The first time I'm announcing this list as the publisher and the Breakfast Club is on our list. Oh, wow. Thank you very much. Thank you for all you all do to have the ear of the people. We have some gifts for the guys from Martel, our sponsors. Oh, salute to Martel. Yeah, you know, the Blue Swift. Okay. Thank you very much. We have one for you, envy we have your beautiful flowers over there yes i thought you were going to be here but we

had some flowers waiting for you from when you come back to the office so everyone go to the root dot com and see who else is on the 100 oh so the route 100 comes out today today you're the first people to know wow that you're we're breaking news here dope thank you very much well what made you you reacquire the roots well what was so and not reacquire well to acquire the roots i just said because reacquired from you know it was it was black owned and then it's other and now it's back Black owns. What made you say this is something that we need back in our culture? Well, I started my company, Watering Hole Media back in 2009, and the root started in 2008. And Watering Hole really was aspirational to what the root was doing. And so when we relaunched two years ago, Watering Hole,

I knew I wanted to acquire some digital properties. And divine timing, honestly, the root was on the short list, and it came available this summer. And you know how, like, you see something you're like, that's mine. Yep. It's mine. That's my assignment. That's what happened with the root. And so my team hustled. We got it done. I'm the face. But there's a lot of people behind that got it done. And it also is in a time when we need to have places to tell our stories and through our lens, unapologetically black. And I always say black stories are American stories and American stories are global stories. And we deserve to have ownership over them. I'm glad you acquired the root. The other time I hated the root. And I hated the root because I was going to say about I was going to say it's blunt. You ever. They used to post so much negative stories about us and just, you know, even people that I actually love and appreciate. And I remember somebody from the root reached out to me and literally told me that they tried to run a very positive story about, I think it was me and Nick Cannon, actually. And they were told that whoever it was was like, absolutely not.

It's the work you guys do behind the scenes. Yes. It was a story about the work me and Nick Cannon do behind the scenes. This was like four or five years ago. And somebody after it was like, absolutely not. Well, it's a new day. New day. It's a new dawn.

And I'm feeling good, right? How do you feel right now? Because I saw vibe merged with Rolling Stone. People were really pissed about that. A lot of black people lost their jobs because of that. TeamVo just announced that they're going under Vogue.com. A lot of people of color lost their jobs. Right now it feels like there is a, like a, not targeted attack, but like just we're losing

a lot of our places to tell stories. So there's a lot of focus on the places that are still running, like the route and all these other places, right? Do you feel like there's a pressure to, like, make this work because we're getting taken out everywhere else? I feel a pressure and a responsibility because of what the root is in our community and can be. And I think telling black stories requires due diligence and responsibility. Also, that people are losing their jobs. I mean, 300,000 black women are out of work right now. So there's a global story, a national story right now about unemployment and people struggling.

So journalism is just one piece of that big, big part. And yes, like I want, now what happened in the past is in the past. And the second day after we announced the acquisition, I told folks, we will not be perfect because no human is. And so, but we will have a standard of excellence. And in telling stories, you all know, you all get, you know, backlash sometimes for some of the covers that you all do. That's an understatement, Ashley. I don't know how would you even throw yourself in this struggle as ownership? I feel like if I didn't get backlash, I'm like, did they hear me?

But I think we always sit here. I come from politics, right? And we always say black people are not a monolith. So I need to make sure I'm telling multiple stories through multiple lenses. And so you might not always agree with what we cover on the route and our position on the root, but you will think about what we cover. And that is, I just think iron sharpens iron and black people deserve to have multitudes of opinions. What does the success look like for you? I want to grow our audience.

We have about 10 million people that come to our website monthly, which is massive. So I want to double that within a year. We're going to be moving the video while still respecting the written word. So we'll do all writing. We'll continue to do writing, but for most written pieces, we'll also have a video component. Our audience is predominantly black, but it's not all black. And so I want the root, again, it is a black publication, but black stories are American stories. And so when you want to know what's going on in the culture, when you want to know what's going on,

what's going on in politics, when you want to know what's going on in sports and entertainment, you can go to the route as a trusted source, just like you may go to a more typical mainstream media platform. I was going to ask that. I was going to say, you know, at one time the route was, I feel like, at the forefront of everything. Yes. And it slowed down a lot and became behind the scenes. How do you get it back to the forefront? And with the world of fake news and nobody knowing who to trust and people are trusting people that are putting out random stories, how do people can come to the route and say, I know this is my trusted source. I know that these stories are real. I know that this is a place

where I can actually trust and loves my community. Well, I think you have to be true to yourself too, right? You can't be all things to everybody. So you, I have to know who I want to be as a publisher, and that is telling unapologetic black stories. That's the first thing. The second thing is that we think there's a place for journalism and fact-checking,

but at a speed that allows people, the reason why I think folks are so susceptible to miss and disinformation is the speed at which it comes in. So we're going to have to scale our team. We have a great set of journalists right now, but it's still a very small team. So looking at growing our footprint, just even in a new, a digital newsroom. And then we also want to have commentary, right? So we're in a world where everybody's

opinion appears to be fact, and that's just not the case. And so we have a do no harm approach. So again, I don't have to agree with everything you say, but you cannot cause harm to black people and have a home at the root. I also say, you know, you don't really, me personally, I don't really care about something and tell who's attached to it. So that's right. When I found out that you was the owner, I was like, oh, so I looked under the hood. I had no idea the root. was founded by Dr. Henry Lewis Gates. Yes, yes. I didn't know that.

Yes. And I called him a couple days before the announcement, and he was just over the top elated. He's like, oh, my gosh, it's like you have my child. And I'm like, and I will take great care of it. And it's like they're in college now. And so we're like college roommates almost. And so I hope to grow with it. It's been around for 17 years.

The responsibility I feel is that if in 17 years it's not stronger and more dominant, then I have not met my call. I would love to know what was his original vision for The Root. Dr. Henry Lewis Gates is a very serious person. Maybe you could go to the root.com pretty soon and find that story. Because I think the other thing is, I'm not a student of history, but I like to study history. And it's really important to understand why was it founded? Think about when that was 2008.

Barack Obama is just reelected. It's what people could say was like a watershed moment in our political history. Well, some would argue right now that's where we're at in this moment and what is the intervention we need to start to set the course and turn the course. And so it was founded in an important time. It was reclaimed back to black ownership

in an important time. And so I want to study what he did. I want to understand what he did while also thinking about what's tomorrow, what tomorrow it needs to deliver for people. Who else is on this list? You mentioned the breakfast club. You got to have to go to the room.

And where are we on the list? So it's like a hundred people. It's 100 people. So one of the things I actually actually decided to do was remove the rankings. Oh, that was rankings? I don't know. It was ranked. I just thought it was the Root 100. No, I always look at the list.

Yeah. Well, I just want to say I was never on the list either. You know, I just got here. Right. So I would look and the route actually, the list has been very aspirational for me because I learned about a job that I eventually had at the White House from the Route 100. You know, they don't like post those jobs on the website. So I've really built my career from interventions from that publication. So it really does have a special part in my story.

But we decided as a team to remove the rankings because in a moment that we are in right now, everybody on the list is exceptional in what they do. And it doesn't matter if you're one or 100, you're doing it. And so why, you're like, well, where was I on the list? And why wasn't I higher than this person? It's a collective. And the only way we get out of this moment is if we do it together.

So you're a part of a community of 100, people in journalism, People in the courtroom, people with microphones themselves, people making films, scientists, CEOs. I'm really proud of the list. I think it really reflects the diversity of it. And you know what? You might see some people on the list and be like, I don't really like them. And I don't care. Because guess what?

They're still doing great work that they're doing. And we need to acknowledge them as well. As you said, black people are not monolithic. That's right. Yeah. That's right. And then on the other side of the business side of it, right, the funding. Like I heard Oprah talk about how own was like the hardest thing she's.

ever done, the same thing with Revolt because it's just hard to get advertisers to give money to black media spaces. What's going to be your plan in the fight for that? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely something that I wake up thinking about and go to bed thinking about, but I think the product has to speak for itself. 10 million visit, unique visits every month is nothing to sneeze at. That is one of the most traffic news sites, but particularly black news sites in our country. So it is a profitable business. business and I see a vision on how we could grow. But again, it's also on the product and the content. So you said, what am I going to do next with it? Video is one thing, but we have some

offline activations that we want to do. Because, like, it's one thing to, you know, I heard you got covering the AI piece, right? It's like it's one thing to see something, but to actually be in relationship proximate to the person is important. So we think our products, the things that we're going to be rolling out soon, the voices that we're going to be having at the route will sell itself. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Thank you and congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations to you, man.

Thank you. It's Ashley Allison. It's the breakfast club. Good morning. Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The breakfast club.

You're all finished or y'all done? On the podcast, health stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. I'm Dr. Priyankawali, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane de Bolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. And on our show, we're talking about health. health in a different way. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Listen to health stuff on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years. until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple. Podcasts.

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why should we suffer through it? Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.