Black History Month begins at the stroke of February – this coming Friday. It’ll be a poignant 28 days for those journalists who wrestle with troublesome questions related to race and coverage.
Are we patronizing in our coverage of race-related issues? Are we reinforcing stereotypes? Does anyone other than politicians and self-perpetuating activists care? Have we become so racially integrated and diverse that it’s silly, even embarrassing, to highlight our differences rather than our similarities? Does that make us propagandists?
Not only that – are we causing the ghettoization of people rather than the inclusiveness and unity that fair coverage ought to inherently generate?
Those are a few of the questions that bounce around the newsrooms all year as we try to tailor coverage for this increasingly diverse market, but they gain a sharper edge during times such as Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage month.
And they are questions that are on some of the best academic and media minds in the United States, a number of whom met in Washington last June to seek answers based on what they were making of local and national coverage.
They gathered for the Shorenstein Center Conference on Race and the Press sponsored by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
The long story short was contained in the conference report’s conclusion written by a panelist, Professor Robert Entman – a leading scholar in the area of race and the media and a faculty member at North Carolina State University. Here’s how he summarized the conference:
“Perhaps the dominant themes at the conference could be boiled down as follows: the culture is becoming more diverse, and as a result, the market is speaking in more complex and insistent ways than ever to the news media (and entertainment media as well). These two factors pose challenges to the longstanding norms and routines governing the media.
“The implications of these changes for the responsibilities and opportunities of the media, and ultimately for public opinion, therefore merit vigorous and continual public dialogue, for they will deeply affect the future of democratic citizenship in a multi-ethnic society.
“The media’s responses to market pressures can have both helpful and problematic effects on race relations.
“On the one hand, there appears to be a growing deployment of resources, especially in print media and on specialized cable channels, toward covering news of minority communities more frequently and with more depth. In this way, the news media protect their market positions while potentially helping to incorporate groups traditionally left out on the margins of public discourse.
“On the other hand, white audiences may pay little attention to these news niches (e.g., special sections or neighborhood editions of daily newspapers, ethnic magazines, or specialized shows on ethnic cable channels). Moreover, in considering the optimal moves for news organizations, both in terms of commercial success and of serving larger democratic goals, the issue of fragmenting and thus culturally segregating the audience along ethnic lines arises in bold relief.
“Segmenting the audience into ethnic enclaves may prove the most economically efficient, profit-generating solution for news operations, and may help to serve those groups’ specialized information needs.
“But where that leaves the function of nourishing a common public sphere that includes all ethnic groups, via truly mass media, remains unclear.”
To obtain a copy of the report online, go to www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/publications/webpapers.htm.
