|
||||
  
 
 |
USU professor's national study of race in the news examines how press covers 'increasingly diverse U.S.' By
the USU department of journalism and communication A Utah State University journalism professor released the first results Thursday from a two-year national study of how TV news and newspapers deal with issues of race and ethnicity at a meeting of press representatives in Florida. Edward C. Pease, head of the USU journalism and communication department, told television news and newspaper leaders that, even at some of the best U.S. news operations, journalists' attitudes regarding race and their coverage of racial and ethnic diversity show "sharp divides between whites and minority journalists in reporting fully and completely on a nation whose demographics, culture and complexion are changing radically." Pease directed a two-year News and Race Models of Excellence Project. The researchers surveyed 970 journalists and analyzed a year's-worth of news reported by six newspapers and six TV stations -- more than 12,500 news items -- to evaluate how the press is adapting to and representing America's new multicultural character. The research was commissioned by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies as part of a four-year project to quantify what's working in industry-wide efforts to increase racial and ethnic diversity in hiring and coverage across the United States. The study was funded by grants from the Ford Foundation, a major funder of such projects nationwide. The News & Race study finds that when there is strong agreement in the newsroom across racial and ethnic lines on the importance of diversity, coverage of traditionally under-covered groups is not only broader, but it is more substantive and more fair. "One of the greatest challenges facing America as we enter the new century is how we as citizens and neighbors will relate with each other and understand one another," Pease said. "Most of what we think we 'know' about the world comes to us through the lenses of the mass media. Understanding how the press sees America and then expresses that vision to the nation is a first step in assessing how well Americans really understand one another." Participants at Thursday's meeting in St. Petersburg, Fla., expanded on the researchers' evaluation of how race and ethnicity plays in the press to look at how the nation and journalists responded to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington. Most of us know little or nothing about the cultures that bred the terrorists' attacks, the journalists said. Knowing about different peoples and cultures is essential, they agreed. Lack of knowledge about Islam and the Arab world was one of the striking press shortcomings after the attacks, said Pease. "I am struck by the parallels between 1967, when the press had practically no one in the newsroom who knew anything about minority communities when they rioted, and Sept. 11, when none of us had any really handle on what Islam is all about. Clearly, understanding diversity is critical if the American press is going to serve any useful role in explaining the world to readers and viewers." Even in these harsh economic times, said Diane McFarlin, publisher of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the "premium on diversity has gone up" because of the coverage after the Sept. 11 attacks. "People want to read about different cultures," she said, and that's what the media sought to do following the tragedy. Pease and his colleagues, scholars Federico Subervi of the University of Texas-Austin and Erna Smith of San Francisco State University, presented the initial results of their two-year $223,500 study, describing both good news and continuing bad news as regards journalism's performance in covering an increasingly diverse U.S. society. The 2000 U.S. Census found that 28.5 percent of Americans are racial and ethnic minorities -- black, Hispanic, Asian-Americans or American Natives -- but most previous examinations of the press have found that coverage of these groups constitute less than 10 percent of the total stories in newspapers and on TV news. "We selected newspapers and TV news operations that have been leaders in covering diversity to see what lessons others can learn about how to tell Americans about the quickly changing complexion and character of their nation," Pease said. "What we learned is that although some excellent work is being done in American journalism, even the best newsrooms in the nation short-change their readers and viewers when it comes to representing the full range of cultures and races and ethnicities that make up America." Though the two-year examination of 12 news organizations well-regarded for their diversity efforts found some old patterns of stereotypical coverage and some hard-to-reconcile contradictions in attitudes, the researchers say the connection between quality journalism and dedication to diversity is real. That, the researchers concluded, suggests that organizations need to bring "greater attention to staff development and better communication of management objectives on diversity to the staff." The researchers found that the TV stations and newspapers in their study did a much better job of covering an increasingly diverse America: the percentage of total coverage in their study that focused on racial and ethnic diversity ranged up to more than 20 percent. But the news organizations they looked at operate in some of America's most racially and ethnically diverse metropolitan areas -- including New York, San Francisco, Detroit and South Florida -- where "minorities" already or will soon outnumber the white majority. While the study found overall improvements in attitudes and coverage since previous studies, it also noted old patterns of stereotypical coverage and mindsets. The attitudinal survey also reflected a gulf between whites and minorities in their belief that "glass ceilings" existed at their organizations, and some respondents said that tokenism was a big problem. "I was very excited when I landed this job at what I considered one of the country's top-tier newspapers," said one African-American woman. " 'Now, 'I thought, 'I could really make a difference.' But soon I discovered that I'm nothing more than window dressing here. I won't be in the business much longer." The newspaper partners were: The San Jose Mercury News, The Seattle Times, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., The Dallas Morning News, and the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The television partners were San Francisco's KRON, WXYZ of Detroit, Tampa's WFLA, KVIA in El Paso, KTVA in Anchorage and WNBC in New York. For details on the News & Race Models of Excellence Project results,
see The Poynter Institute at (http://www.poynter.org/offthenews/101801_diversityupdate.htm
and http://www.poynter.org/offthenews/101701_diversitystory.htm),
or contact the Department of Journalism and Communication at Utah State
University (435-797-3292). |
Archived Months:
January
1999 January
2000 January
2001 |
||