Economic impact
Founded the Associated Negro Press (ANP) in Chicago in 1919, establishing a news service that supplied weekly copy to more than 100 Black-owned newspapers across the United States at its peak in the 1930s. The service operated from offices in Bronzeville, employing editors and a national network of correspondents. Barnett's syndicate provided news coverage of the Great Migration and commercial developments within Black urban communities until the service ceased operations in 1964.