| Whose coverage? |
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Other news outlets will not give African Americans the coverage they need. Studies have shown that when it comes to black people, the mainstream press conducts its own type of racial profiling. News reports disproportionately associate African Americans with crime, drugs, and poverty. Besides these stories on social pathology, they rarely appear in other parts of the newspaper except the sports and entertainment pages--roles that have long been acceptable for them in white America. The mainstream media pays scant attention to the doctors, lawyers, elected officials, and other black professionals that work daily to improve the lives of black people, or the heroic black mothers and fathers who struggle to raise successful children in a dangerous world. Take the coverage of police brutality. The mainstream media continually makes the mistake of portraying instances of excessive police force as unfortunate, yet isolated, incidents, instead of recognizing that they speak to a profound and systemic problem. Such was the case with Amadou Diallo, a West African immigrant cut down in a hail of 41 bullets two years ago as he was attempting to enter his apartment in The Bronx. The mainstream news organizations reported the press conferences and demonstrations organized by activists. However, the vast majority did not go beyond that coverage to address the community's constant complaints of police assaults and unreasonable stop-and-frisk policies, by which young black men who have committed no crime are stopped by police and searched for having a "suspicious bulge" or "moving in a suspicious manner." The abuse is so profoundly damaging and demoralizing to black people that it needs constant attention. The problems are not limited to extreme situations that end in death. And yet mainstream news outlets have avoided telling these stories. Editors at these newspapers or broadcast stations attempt to justify their shift away from urban coverage by arguing that the suburbs are their only growing market, and that they need to attract advertising dollars from malls and other suburban business outlets to stay alive. Black journalists counter that mainstream papers could increase readership in urban neighborhoods and reverse circulation declines--a problem that has plagued the industry for decades--if they would only pay more attention to these communities. But mainstream editors haven't listened. And there aren't enough black people in decision-making positions at those news organizations to make a difference. People of color make up 12 percent of newspapers' reporting staffs, but only 9 percent of newsroom management positions. Managers are the people in the newsroom charged with the power to determine editorial content, and minorities clearly aren't represented as well among their ranks. Furthermore, even as black news institutions have deteriorated, the numbers of African Americans within the mainstream press continue to lag far behind. Black journalists constitute less that 6 percent of the staff of U.S. newspapers, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. And although people of color are 28 percent of the U.S. population, they are only 12 percent of newspaper journalists. Mainstream newspapers do not recruit enough journalists of color--and they have a hard time holding onto them. Some 400 minorities leave the profession each year for every 550 that join, according to a recent report by the Freedom Forum, a private foundation devoted to free-press issues. Black journalists leave the profession at double the rate that their white counterparts do, the same study said. In part, this is because many black journalists feel that they get passed
over when white managers dole out the promotions and plum assignments.
They also
become frustrated because their communities are overlooked.
Unfortunately, black journalists who are dissatisfied with the mainstream press don't have a place to go in their own communities;
few of the African American papers still in existence are willing or able
to pay a decent wage. Whose coverage? |