The caller — a New Yorker who had been living in Atlanta a few years — was perplexed.
In the Journal-Constitution’s extensive coverage of Monday’s American Airlines crash in New York was a large graphic that included a map of the city’s boroughs, with a chart of their populations broken down by race.
She needed to know why — in a story about a horrible air disaster — the newspaper thought the racial breakdown of New York City’s boroughs was at all relevant.
“I’ve noticed this about your paper,” she said. “You seem to want to inject race into everything you write. Why do you think that’s necessary?”
The reader asks an important question, one that is a frequent topic of inquiries about the Journal-Constitution.
I’m going to try to answer.
It’s not easy because most of the time when I am asked about it, the inquirer perceives there is some hidden agenda to our reporting. And more often than not, that perception is fueled by a failure on our part to explain why race matters in a story.
If newspapers are supposed to be a reflection of the community they serve — and I believe they are — the topic of race is inescapable in Atlanta.
Rightly or wrongly, race almost always lurks in the background or pushes itself right up front-and-center in many of the social, political, education and religious issues the newspaper deals with.
Whether that is a discussion of who is perceived to be the “blackest” of Atlanta’s mayoral candidates — a topic we have written about in each of the last three mayoral races, when all the candidates were African-Americans — or whether “minorities” are more likely to be disciplined, or drop out of, or score worse in tests, in public schools, the Journal-Constitution routinely deals with racial issues.
It’s hard to avoid. We live in an historic setting. For decades the race story in Atlanta has been framed in black-and-white terms. In recent years a third element has been added to our equation, as Hispanics have moved here in record numbers.
Sometimes dwelling on race is interesting and essential to the full telling of a story. Other times, as in the case with the New York graphic accompanying the plane crash story, it may be interesting but seems out of context.
Because the plane was full of Santo Domingans from the New York area and it crashed in an ethnically diverse neighborhood, editors thought they’d provide census information about the boroughs that most Atlantans would not know.
It’s important for reporters and editors to be able to explain the relevancy of racial information in stories, not make readers guess why it is included or highlighted.
On Wednesday for instance, the newspaper reported that Hispanic students in Georgia are less likely than anywhere else in the country to graduate on time with a diploma, according to a study by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
But down in the story, readers found another important fact: Georgia is worst in the nation for graduating students of all races. Only 57 percent of the students in the class of 1998 graduated on time in Georgia, the study showed.
So why focus on Hispanics?
Among other reasons, we have known for years that Georgia has a high overall dropout rate, and the study of Hispanics was a newer angle to that continuing story. The numbers were startling — only 32 percent of Hispanics graduate on time in the state.
Plus, the increase in Hispanic enrollment is causing many metro Atlanta districts to rethink traditional educational approaches for low-income students.
As is the case in many studies such as this, probably the most significant predictor of whether a student would drop out is the income of his family or the education level of her parents, experts will tell you.
And in this state, African-Americans and Hispanics make up a disproportionate share of poor and undereducated Georgians. That’s why it’s in so many of our stories.
It’s important to keep that in mind when we write stories that have a racial component. It’s even more important to explain it to readers.
