The news media have been criticized for paying too little attention to the coverage of minorities. Moreover, other groups as well as scholars have also noted hesitancy on the part of the news media to focus on issues of interest and concern to people of color. On a recent panel, one New York Times editor said he has attempted to set up bureaus in disadvantaged neighborhoods to increase minority coverage but his efforts had been thwarted.
1940s Commission on the Freedom of the Press
- The media should provide a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the day's events in a context which gives them meaning.
- The media should serve as a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism.
- The media should project a representative picture of the constituent groups in society
- The media should present and clarify the goals and values of the society.
- The media should provide full access to the day's intelligence.
For this assignment I will look locally. More specifically, I will ask how much coverage of minorities there is within the pages of the Florida Times-Union. In order to do this, I will conduct a content analysis of the paper over a seven-day period. I will go through the newspaper's "A" section and its Metro section over that one-week period looking for photographs. They will be coded as follows: Number of white men, number of white women, number of African-American men, and number of African-American women. I will not count people who are simply in large crowds; however, I will note in what context these people are portrayed: sports, political/governmental, crimes and expert.
White Male | White Female | African-American Male | African-American Female | |
Sports | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Political/Gov't. | 13 | 10 | 1 | 1 |
Crimes | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Human Interest | 9 | 8 | 1 | 1 |
Expert | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Photo Appearances in October 4, 2010 issue of Florida Times-Union
On Monday, October 4, 2010, 14 percent of the photographs that appeared in the Metro and "A" sections of the Florida Times-Union were pictures of African-Americans (men and women). A further investigation shows only three of that 14 percent were African-American women. Based on upon the findings, I propose that the Monday paper is tailored toward white business-men because the majority of the news has to deal with political and governmental issues lead by white men and women.
White Male | White Female | African-American Male | African-American Female | |
Sports | 13 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
Political/Gov't. | 5 | 10 | 1 | 0 |
Crimes | 5 | 2 | 8 | 5 |
Human Interest | 8 | 8 | 0 | 1 |
Expert | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Photo Appearances in October 5, 2010 issue of Florida Times-Union
On Tuesday, October 5, 2010 it seems that sports is the main issue attacked. It seems the outcome of Monday night football framed most the stories within the Metro and "A" section of the paper with 26 percent of the pictures; however, only five percent of those pictures were taken of African-Americans. Pictures of African-American criminals did comprise more than 10 percent of the 75 pictures taken in both sections, though.
White Male | White Female | African-American Male | African-American Female | |
Sports | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Political/Gov't. | 8 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Crimes | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 |
Human Interest | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Expert | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Photo Appearances in October 6, 2010 issue of Florida Times-Union
On Wednesday, 6 October, 2010 only 39 pictures comprised both sections; however, an alarmingly three (eight percent) were taken of minorities, and over 20 percent were just of white males in the political or governmental field.
White Male | White Female | African-American Male | African-American Female | |
Sports | 9 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
Political/Gov't. | 13 | 6 | 2 | 3 |
Crimes | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
Human Interest | 15 | 11 | 3 | 1 |
Expert | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Photo Appearances in October 7, 2010 issue of Florida Times-Union
White Male | White Female | African-American Male | African-American Female | |
Sports | 8 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
Political/Gov't. | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Crimes | 3 | 1 | 5 | 2 |
Human Interest | 21 | 11 | 0 | 2 |
Expert | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Photo Appearances in October 8, 2010 issue of Florida Times-Union
On Friday, 8 October, Caucasian males chalked up the most photographs as well, especially in the human interest category with 21 of the 65 pictures taken (that is almost a third of the pictures in the two sections).
White Male | White Female | African-American Male | African-American Female | |
Sports | 7 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
Political/Gov't | 6 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Crimes | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Human Interest | 4 | 8 | 1 | 5 |
Expert | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
On Saturday, 9 October there was a huge leap in the number of Caucasians men photographed. In fact, the either led or were tied with the same amount of pictures in all categories. According to my research, of the 57 pictures displayed in the layout, almost 58 percent of the pictures were all of Caucasian men, especially in the political and governmental category with 26 percent of the total pictures recorded. That is almost twice as many photos in one category than of the minorities in all the categories.
White Male | White Female | African-American Male | African-American Female | |
Sports | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Political/Gov't | 15 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
Crimes | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Human Interest | 10 | 7 | 0 | 2 |
Expert | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Photo Appearances in October 10, 2010 issue of Florida Times-Union
Sunday, 10 October seems to have the most even number of pictures taken of Caucasians and African-Americans. I propose because most people read the Sunday paper, and it also incorporates more coupons to be "clipped" by lower socio-economic families. Of the 57 pictures displayed in the newspaper, 21 percent were of minorities with zero percent in the crime category, but most of them were in the secondary sports category probably as a result of college football games being played on Saturday.
According "The Parity Paradox: Reader Response to Minority Newsroom Staffing" and author Terry Adams, "The topic of newspaper newsroom diversity has been studied in terms of staffing levels, impact of minority staffing on editorial content, and the failure of newspapers to attract minority readers. However, no studies have been conducted that compared minority staffing levels with circulation and survey data indicating minority community readership and trust in newspapers. Through a secondary analysis of data from four sources, this study finds that minority staffing levels do not correlate with increased subscriptions and trust of local newspapers by the minority residents of 25 communities. Most surprising, one finding suggests that increased minority staffing actually may have a negative effect on minority reader trust. Given these results, the authors suggest that a more complex model should be adopted for measuring the success of newsroom diversity efforts."
An even more alarming study that I found reported exposure to a newspaper characterized by negative. This study was conducted by Mauric Vergeer from the Department of Methodology and Marcel Lubbers and Peer Scheepers of the Department of Sociology at the University of Njimegen in the Netherlands.
reporting about ethnic crime leads people to perceive ethnic minorities as more of a threat than exposure to other newspapers does
I found this article alarming because 42 percent of the pictures associated with crime were African-American minorities. Furthermore, 13 percent of the crime-associated pictures were of female African-Americans, while 28 percent were of Caucasian females! In retrospect, there is a gross misrepresentation of minority human interest stories pictures. In the week of 4 October to 10 October there were 146 pictures depicting human interest stories, of the 146 pictures only 18 were of minorities! Moreover, almost half, 49 percent, depicted Caucasian males.
However, I am not surprised because upon researching the photo staff of the Florida Times-Union of the 13 staff members, 11 are Caucasian males, one is a Caucasian female and the other is a female of a different minority group.
