Press Kit
Press & Media
Everything you need to write about Melanin Bliss Media accurately — the category, the platform, the founder, the facts, and the assets.
For interviews, speaking, or coverage of Melanin Bliss Media and Health Equity Journalism, contact amber@mbmedia.co.
The Category
What MB Covers
Health Equity Journalism is the editorial discipline of treating information access, narrative accuracy, and institutional accountability as material public health interventions for Black and Brown communities.
It is distinct from health journalism, which explains; from Black media as currently practiced, which tends top-down toward celebrity and lifestyle; from advocacy journalism, which takes positions; and from public health communications, which speak from institutions down to communities.
It rests on four structural requirements: information as care — coverage gaps treated as mortality drivers; bottom-up architecture — reporting that begins with the patient, family, and community before the system; operational fluency at the founder level — practitioners who have worked inside the institutions they cover, not studied them; and a solutions-first standard — every piece names a problem and equips the reader with a tool to act.
Boilerplate
About Melanin Bliss Media
Melanin Bliss Media is an independent, founder-led cultural digital media platform practicing Health Equity Journalism — original investigative reporting that treats information as a material public health intervention for Black and Brown communities. Founded as a personal blog in 2019 and relaunched and incorporated in 2025 as an investigative journalism company, MB publishes The Melanin Memo every Monday and Thursday, with a weekly Behind the Bliss investigation, claim check, explainer, or analysis. MB is 100% Black woman-owned and independent by design: no partner, at any tier, shapes editorial. Based in New York, NY.
MB's Public Promise
Melanin Bliss Media reports from the lives of people too often left out of decisions that affect them. We connect their experiences to the policies, money, technology, and operational choices behind them. We hold ourselves to professional standards, stay curious about innovation, and never forget the person who has to live with the outcome.
The Founder
Amber K. McClendon
Amber K. McClendon is the Founder and CEO of Melanin Bliss Media and the creator of its Health Equity Journalism approach. She has worked in U.S. healthcare administration for 15 years, across oncology, cardiology, and billing operations at hospitals in New York and Los Angeles. She built MB to report from the perspective of people who live with the consequences of healthcare decisions—not only those who make them.
In 2022, an accident left Amber temporarily paralyzed. When medical errors threatened her recovery, she took charge of her care. Her knowledge of medicine and her determination to act for herself are why she is alive today. She built Melanin Bliss Media so that more people can enter consequential moments with information, questions, and a stronger voice of their own.
Amber plans to pursue a Master of Public Health focused on health policy and management, with the goal of beginning in fall 2027. She hopes to deepen her work on health disparities and the policy and operational decisions that shape care.
I am my readers.
I've worked in medicine for 15 years, and I love it. I've also lived with the questions, pressures, and decisions that Melanin Bliss Media reports on. I don't approach this work as someone looking in from the outside. I ask what a policy, a bill, or a new technology means for us because I need those answers, too.
MB begins with the person—not the announcement, the institution, or the headline. We follow the evidence, name who has the power to act, and make the information useful to the people living with the consequences.
I can't save everyone. But I can do this work with care, courage, and the determination to leave fewer of us unheard.
At a Glance
Fast Facts
Selected Reporting
Published Work
The Piedmont Henry Hospital doula case — the clinical and legal dimensions no one else reported.
135 Days Until Two Million New Yorkers Have To Prove It
How a Medicaid work-requirement countdown becomes a real deadline for two million New Yorkers — health-policy reporting decoded to the household level.
The Fastest Decision in the Hospital
Inside the split-second triage call that shapes a patient's entire hospital outcome — healthcare-systems reporting from someone who has run the operations.
The Health Is in the Policy: What MB is Watching During CBC ALC55
Health equity is not one panel. It is the outcome of every decision about who gets protected, funded, counted and heard.
The Conference Ends. The Receipt Begins. — a conference can create momentum. The real test is what gets funded, implemented, measured and changed.
How MB Covers Health Innovation
Melanin Bliss Media covers health innovation from the patient outward. We examine the evidence behind a promise, the policy and operational decisions required to put it into practice, and the effects on the people expected to use it.
Our reporting connects Black and Brown patients and communities with frontline workers, health-system administrators, founders, and policymakers — then follows what happens after a pilot or announcement.
MB's reporting asks what happens after those ideas enter a real care setting. I plan to examine how tools are evaluated for bias and clinical usefulness, how staffing, billing, and workflow affect adoption, and whether patients and frontline workers have a meaningful role in judging results. MB seeks interviews across those groups and publishes reported coverage that helps readers understand not only what was announced, but who can use it and who is accountable for its outcomes.
They Can Ask You to Leave — patient experience and institutional accountability
The Fastest Decision in the Hospital — operations
135 Days Until Two Million New Yorkers Have To Prove It — policy
The Pain They Didn't Believe — public-health data and disbelief as policy
A fourth clip on clinical AI and algorithmic bias is in reporting — link to follow once published.
Brand Assets
Logo, Color & Type
MB Wordmark + Mark
Deep Brown
#804B29
Bronze
#9A5921
Gold
#C98733
Amber
#F1A340
Orange
#E66B25
Red
#D5242A
Ink
#2A1A0E
Ivory
#FBF3E9
Typography
Oswald · Playfair Display · Spectral
Please don't alter, recolor, or stretch the logo, and don't reproduce MB's reporting or the Health Equity Journalism™ framework as your own. Short quotes with attribution and a link are welcome. Additional logo files are available on request — email amber@mbmedia.co.
Press Contact
Get in Touch
Not a brand. A blueprint.
Conference Coverage
Melanin Bliss Media reports where the promise meets the patient
A breakthrough announced onstage is only the beginning of the story. Melanin Bliss Media follows health policy, technology, and institutional decisions into the places they become real: the waiting room, the bill, the frontline workflow, the community, and the choices families are left to make.
We begin with people closest to the consequences. Then we ask the people with decision-making power how a promise is funded, implemented, measured, and corrected. That is MB's approach to Health Equity Journalism: bottom-up reporting with the operational knowledge to understand what happens inside a system—and the independence to question it.
Our editorial test: Who benefits? Who is missing? Who has authority? What does the evidence show? What can readers use?
Invite MB to cover the decision behind the headline.
Melanin Bliss Media covers conferences, policy convenings, health-system conversations, and community events when there is a substantive story for our audience. We seek access to the people announcing a change and the people who will implement or live with it. Our coverage may include reported articles, interviews, explanatory newsletters, and follow-up reporting after an event ends.
Relevant beats include health equity, public health, healthcare operations, clinical AI, medical costs, and the cultural and economic forces shaping Black and Brown life. For media credentials or interview opportunities, contact amber@mbmedia.co.
See the Method in Action
They Can Ask You to Leave — patient experience and institutional accountability
The Fastest Decision in the Hospital — hospital operations
135 Days Until Two Million New Yorkers Have To Prove It — policy translated into practical stakes
For Event Press Teams
Outlet: Melanin Bliss Media — an independent, founder-led cultural digital media platform practicing Health Equity Journalism.
Reporting beats: health policy, hospital and health-system accountability, maternal health, and clinical AI/algorithmic bias, all through the Health Equity Journalism lens — original investigative reporting for Black and Brown communities.
Formats: The Melanin Memo (Mon/Thu dispatch) and a weekly Behind the Bliss feature, published at melaninblissmedia.com.
Press contact: amber@mbmedia.co · 914.497.1480 · New York, NY.