Only in Glimpses: Portrayal of America's Largest Minority Groups
by the New York Times, 1934-1994
One of the great anomalies of American society is the way white Americans
are so proud of this country being "the melting pot," and are willing
to
celebrate the contributions of immigrants to American history and
culture--as long as those immigrants are white. White Americans quite
willingly observe St. Patrick's Day, and Italian-American Day, and
Oktoberfests. But America has no holidays or observances indicating that
we value the presence in our society of African Americans, Native
Americans, Latinos (of any race) or Asians, except for Martin Luther King
Day--and even that has been reluctantly accepted. For years it was
not
observed in Arizona, and now New Hampshire has disallowed it.
Many whites' attitude toward Martin Luther King Day was typified early
this year by the remark of a western Pennsylvania township trustee,
when he
was questioned about whether to reschedule a trustees' meeting that fell
on the holiday honoring Dr. King. He said he saw no reason to
reschedule
the meeting because it was a holiday for "colored" people and "doesn't
involve us." The township clerk agreed, observing that if "a real
holiday"
had fallen on the group's meeting day, the meeting would have been res
cheduled.1
This "us-them" mentality seems to lie at the root of white Americans'
reluctance to recognize and honor the contributions of non-white
immigrants
and Native Americans.2 Just like the Irish, the Germans, the Italians,
the Czechs and Poles and Hungarians, these non-white Americans
(millions of
whose ancestors were brought here against their will) have labored just as
hard to build the country, have fought in her wars, have contributed their
foods and music and genius to our polyglot culture. Yet their
contributions are largely absent from our history books, from our
media and
from our national consciousness. And the reason for that absence is the
bred-in-the-bone racism that is part of American society, that says
that a
non-white must be, by definition, less valuable than a white. Thus his
or
her contributions can be overlooked.
It is widely accepted among scholars and others interested in the media's
coverage of race that the press has been a racist institution, as it
has
reflected the racism prevalent in white society throughout our
country's
history. Numerous studies have provided myriad examples of racist
reporting
of news about African Americans and Native Americans by various individual
newspapers in different time periods in the past two centuries.
Systematic studies of newspaper portrayals of Latinos and Asian Americans a
re fewer in number, but they reveal the same patterns of distorted,
unrepresentative and demeaning coverage.
For example, a score of empirical studies of coverage of African Americans
by newspapers in various parts of the country during the first half of
this century almost uniformly revealed that the papers gave little
space to
coverage of blacks and heavily emphasized crime news in the stories they
did run. The only positive coverage found, in the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch,
was so sparse that the researcher noted that African Americans could be
seen in the paper only in glimpses, and a reader would have to search
diligently to find them.3 Studies of coverage since the Civil Rights
Movement accelerated in the mid-1950s have indicated that more space was
devoted to news about black Americans, but the coverage still showed
scant
attention to black problems and concerns, little explanation of the
causes
of black unrest during times of racial conflict and very little
coverage of
the kind of everyday life activities of African Americans that are
routinely covered for white Americans, such as births, deaths, marriages,
organizational news, individual achievements.4
Martindale's studies of four major newspapers' coverage of African
Americans from the 1950s through the 1980s revealed considerably increased
press attention to black Americans from the 1960s onward, diminished
evidence of overt racism in coverage, increased coverage of black problems
during the 1970s and '80s, and much greater coverage of everyday life
activities of blacks, but also increased stereotypical coverage of black
criminals, athletes and entertainers.5
In studies of press portrayals of Native Americans, Copeland's examples of
colonial newspapers' portrayal of "the sculking Indian enemy" document the
way hostility and fear of Native Americans dominated newspaper accounts of
Indians from the earliest years of this country's founding.6 Studies by
Coward and others show that newspaper accounts that condemned Native
Americans for their violence and perceived savagery and provided no
understanding of their cultures were the norm throughout the 19th century
as well.7 Weston and others indicate that in this century Native
Americans
are largely ignored in the press except in times of conflict, or when they
are presented as exotic curiosities, and that Native Americans as a
contemporary people, and discussion of their concerns, is largely absent
from the press, even from newspapers published in areas with large
Native
American populations.8
Only a few empirical studies of media coverage of Latinos have been
reported. These have covered Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans and
Hispanics in general, and have been conducted in the past 30 years. In
general, they have found that coverage is slight, tends to be focused
on
situations in which the Latinos are perceived to be a threat or a
problem
for Anglo society or on other negative issues, and fails to show the
everyday life activities of Latino communities.9
Even fewer empirical studies of media coverage of Asian Americans have
been reported, and these tend to focus on local newspapers' coverage of
issues concerning Chinese and Japanese Americans on the West Coast.
Studies by Heuterman and others indicate that the newspapers reflected the
prevailing attitudes of white Americans toward Asian Americans, and
either
remained silent about or even participated in surges of xenophobia and
persecution of Asian Americans.10 A 1992 newswatch project done in the
San
Francisco area revealed numerous examples of contemporary print and
broadcast news coverage that perpetuated stereotypes, used ethnic slurs,
and inflamed racial hostility toward Asian and Asian Pacific
Americans.11
Studies that examine in systematic fashion how newspapers covered all four
minority groups, and that compare the coverage of each group to the others
and draw out common themes or problems, are almost nonexistent. A
newswatch project conducted in 1993, however, yielded numerous anecdotal
examples of inadequate coverage. The report said that coverage of
African
Americans is more abundant, varied and balanced than ever before, but
still
tends to focus on the negative aspects of African American life and cu
lture.12 In contrast, coverage involving Native Americans was marred by
over-reliance on old language and stereotypes ("Going on the warpath,"
"Custer's Last Stand") and with old storylines (alcoholism and poverty,
historical events), and failed to represent Native peoples as
contemporary
people facing the challenges of the real world.13
The coverage tended to depict Latinos as foreign to America and its
values, the newswatch study said, and also failed to cover everyday life
of
Latino communities.14 Similarly, the study indicated that the same
problem affected coverage of Asian Americans, noting that the notion of
"foreignness" hung over all Asian Americans, whether fifth-generation
American or newly arrived refugees. The coverage had, however, begun to
move past the polarized images of Asian Americans as criminals and
gang
members or model minorities to increasingly varied and accurate
portrayals,
the study said.15
In their 1985 book, Wilson and Gutierrez stated that the white mainstream
press has historically perceived of minorities as outside the American
system, and has tended to report on them as people who either have
problems
or cause problems for society.16 This analysis seems to account for many
of the inaccurate portrayals reported in the above-mentioned studies.
Because no systematic, quantitative study of news media portrayal of the
four major groups of people of color has been done, it was thought
that
such a work could add some useful information to media scholars'
ongoing
analysis of print media coverage of minority groups. Analyzing the
coverage over time and noting how it changed and how the portrayals of the
different groups compared to each other also seemed likely to provide
valuable insights. Accordingly, the New York Times, which since its
inception has considered itself the nation's "newspaper of record," was
chosen for study. The time period selected was the past 60 years, from
1934 to 1994.
Design of the Study
A stratified sample of months of the year, weeks of the month and days of
the week for every fourth year between 1934 and 1994 was drawn up, and
a
sample of dates was drawn randomly from this group. The number of
dates
selected averaged about 20 per year for the 16 years chosen for
sampling,
for a total sample size of 326 issues.
The sample unit was any item about African Americans, Native Americans,
Latinos or Asian Americans found in the main news section and the
editorial
pages of each issue selected for examination. Sports, entertainment and
other special sections of the papers were not studied, because the
project's aim was to obtain a picture of the general news coverage of the
various groups. The items coded included news and feature stories,
photos,
editorials, opinion columns, letters to the editor and cartoons. A total
of 694 items were coded.
Each item found was measured and assigned to one of 15 subcategories of
coverage on the basis of the item's topic. All items were converted
to a
standard 2.25-inch column width. The average number of column inches
of
coverage per decade was computed by dividing the total number of
inches of
coverage found in that decade's sample issues by the total number of
issues
examined for that decade.
The 15 subcategories of coverage comprised three main categories. These
were Stereotypical coverage, which included items about persons
accused of
crimes, and about athletes and entertainers. The second general
category,
Everyday Life, included items that showed the everyday activities of
people
of color as part of the normal life of the community. Such items included
news about community activities, military-related news, individual
achievements, political activities, government, disasters and culture-
related items. The third category, Race-Related items, included articles
about interracial violence, protests, discrimination, civil rights
law,
civil rights gains and problems facing the group.
Intercoder reliability was tested among five people doing coding for the
study. The number of subcategory assignments made was divided into
the
number of agreed-upon assignments. Out of a total of 232 items found
in
the reliability test, intercoder reliability was 82 percent.
Findings
Table 1 shows the volume of coverage, in average column inches per decade,
given to each racial group. The table's most noticeable aspect is the
overwhelming dominance of news about African Americans, even though in
some
decades the average number of column inches of news about blacks found was
only a few inches. Coverage of blacks averaged a total of 268 inches,
compared to totals of less than 30 inches each for the other three
groups.
The average number of column inches per issue for Asians was less than one
inch for four of the seven decades sampled, Latinos did not appear in
measureable amounts during the first two decades sampled and Native
Americans did not appear in the 1930s issues sampled.
Table 2 shows the same phenomenon in a different way, as it shows the
number of stories found about each group in each decade. The total
number
of stories found about African Americans in the seven decades was 570,
while the total for each of the other groups was well under 100. Tables
1
and 2 also show similarities in the volume and frequency of coverage
of
Native Americans and Asian Americans.
Since so much more coverage of African Americans was found than coverage
of the other groups, and since the amount of that coverage climbed and
declined and then climbed again in specific years sampled, Table 3 was
constructed to show how and when the volume of coverage of black
Americans
changed.
The table shows that the sample years 1958, 1970 and 1990 were watershed
years that marked significant changes in the amount of coverage of
African
Americans found. In 1958 the amount of coverage found was four times
greater than that found in any of the previous years sampled, and the
coverage totals continued to climb through the next decade. After 1970
the
coverage declined sharply. The coverage found in 1958 and 1970 accounted
for 75 and 76 percent, respectively, of the total coverage found in
each of
those decades. In 1990 the coverage totals again rose steeply, and
remained high through 1994.
Tables 4 through 7 illustrate the nature of the coverage of each group, in
percentages of total coverage devoted to the various subcategories of
coverage in each decade. Table 8 shows the total average column inches
of
coverage devoted to each group over the 60-year period studied, and
the
percentage of the totals given to each subcategory of coverage, in
order to
provide an overview of the data presented on Tables 4 through 7.
Table 4, which shows the nature of the coverage of African Americans
found, indicates that nearly a quarter of the very little coverage of
black
Americans provided in the 1950s issues sampled was of black crime. It
also reveals that this type of coverage climbed to over 10 percent of
the
total coverage found from the 1970s on. Other categories of coverage
that
received consistent coverage throughout the period studied were
outstanding
achievements of individuals, political activities, black protest and civil
rights gains (which frequently consisted of white leaders calling for
justice and integration).
In each decade but one significant amounts of the total coverage was given
to discrimination. Interracial violence, which in all but a few stories
consisted of whites attacking African Americans, also was covered in
each
decade but one. These stories frequently involved white police
accused of
beating or killing a black suspect or prisoner.
Another category of stories covered in each decade except one was black
problems. Of the 16 problem stories found, five concerned education
available to blacks, four concerned employment, three concerned health, two
concerned housing, and one each concerned welfare and crime. Not until
early 1994 was a problem story found that took a positive approach and
portrayed hope for the situation. Conversely, in the Feb. 25, 1994
issue
was found an Anna Quindlan column on the problem of rape in general
that
used, in two of her three examples, a black man raping a white woman.
Beginning in the 1970s numerous stories about civil rights protests and
political activities involving cooperative action by blacks and
Latinos,
mainly Puerto Ricans, began to appear, and these continued through the
1990s. In the 1990s several stories about black protests against Korean
store owners in New York and several stories of black violence against
Vietnamese and Koreans were found. Also in the 1990s appeared the first
story of a Latino attack on an African American, and the first
accounts of
disunity within the black community, over Louis Farrakhan and his
ministers.
The nature of the coverage of African Americans over the whole period
studied is shown on Table 8, and affirms that the largest volume of
coverage was given to stories about political activities, discrimination
against blacks, and crime.
Table 5, which shows the nature of the coverage of Native Americans, is
noteable mainly for the paucity of the coverage found. No items were
found
in the 1930s issues sampled, only one story each was found in the 1940s
and 1980s issues sampled, and the coverage found in the other four
decades
never averaged more than five inches for the decade.
With so little coverage found, it is difficult to note any patterns. It
seems that stories dealing with Natives' relations with the government
and
political activities were the only topics to receive large percentages
of
the coverage somewhat consistently, as did problems facing Native
Americans. Of the five problem stories found, two concerned education
available to Native Americans, and one each concerned poverty,
alcoholism
and forced removal of Native children from their parents.
Unlike the situation with Latinos, who beginning in the 1970s were
referred to in general as Hispanics rather than Puerto Ricans or Mexican
Americans, the Native Americans were often identified by tribe. In 14
of
the 31 stories found, the particular tribal group was named, with the
Pueblos, Navajos and Sioux each mentioned twice.
An overview of the coverage of Native Americans is provided by Table 8,
which shows that 27 percent of the total coverage over the period
studied
was of problems facing Native peoples. The table makes clear that the
other largest amounts of coverage went to political activities, Native
Americans' relations with the government, and military activities. The
latter coverage was mostly from a very long article about Native women
joining the New Army Corps during World War II.
Table 6, showing coverage of Latinos, indicates a lack of coverage similar
to that found for Native Americans, with less than an inch average of
coverage in the 1930s, none at all in the 1940s, and only a few inches
for
each of the next four decades. Not until the 1990s did the coverage
top an
average of 15 inches, and the coverage in this decade was quadruple that
of any of the previous decades. The 34 items found in the 1990s
issues
coded accounted for half of the total of 67 items on Latinos found.
Another of the few patterns noticeable in the coverage of Latinos was the
large amount of the small total of coverage that was devoted to crimes
committed by Latinos. Also large percentages of the coverage were
devoted
to community activities and to political activities in several of the
decades studied.
In the 1970s issues sampled, 44 percent of the protest and political
stories recorded were of actions taken by African Americans and Puerto
Ricans in New York. Both the problem stories found, on poverty and
AIDS,
were of problems shared by blacks and Latinos, according to the
stories.
Fourteen percent of the total coverage of Latinos found specifically
identified Puerto Ricans as the subject of the item.
The Jan. 20, 1994 issue sampled yielded a positive and unusual opinion
piece on the Latino victims of the Northridge, CA earthquake. The
article
portrayed the Latinos helping each other and enduring stoically, while
more
affluent Anglos who oppose welfare were the first in line demanding that
the government help them, according to the author. An August 1994
issue
included another unusual story, of a Latino teenager repeatedly
hitting a
black teenager in Los Angeles. This was the first item found that
showed
bad feeling rather than cooperation between African Americans and
Latinos.
The overview of the coverage found on Latinos, shown on Table 8, reveals
that a total of 38 percent of the coverage concerned crime. It should
be
noted, however, that by far the largest amount of this type of
coverage was
found in the 1990s issues sampled, and showed Latinos as the victims as
well as the perpetrators of the crimes. This table also confirms that
community and political activities were the other largest subcategories
of
coverage of Latinos.
Table 7 shows the nature of the coverage of Asian Americans found, and
shows that in four of the decades an average of less than one inch of
coverage was found. In each decade a large amount of the little coverage
found was devoted to accounts of crimes committed by Asian Americans.
Of
this crime coverage, 96 percent of it showed Chinese Americans as the
criminals.
Only in the 1980s and 1990s were an average of a few inches of coverage of
Asian Americans found. In the 1980s issues sampled 39 percent of the
coverage was devoted to the one Asian American problem story found,
about
the isolation of Vietnamese immigrants. In the 1990s two-thirds of
the
coverage concerned African American boycotts of stores owned by Korean
Americans or black violence and animosity toward Asian Americans.
Of the total coverage of Asian Americans found, 80 percent of the items
mentioned a specific nationality group. Some 32 percent of the
coverage,
but only two of the stories, mentioned Vietnamese. Chinese Americans
appeared in 27 percent of the coverage, most of it concerning crime, in
nine stories. Hawaiians were the topic of 11 percent of the coverage,
in
only two stories; Koreans were mentioned in 8 percent of the coverage,
in
four stories; and Japanese Americans were mentioned in 2 percent of
the cov
erage, in three stories.
Table 8 shows that 23 percent of the total coverage of Asian Americans
over the period studied was crime news, and a similar amount was
accounted
for by the one very long story on Vietnamese immigrants. Political
activities represented the other large percentage of the coverage.
Conclusions
The amount of coverage found on the different racial groups supports
Wilson and Gutierrez's earlier-mentioned contention that the mainstream
press has seen minorities as outside, rather than a part of, American
society. A corollary belief, the authors suggested, was that the media
managers tended to cover them mainly when they cause problems for white
society, or have problems. While this study found more than just
conflict
and problems coverage, it did show that until the confrontational
events of
the Civil Rights Movement commanded press attention to African Americans
in the late 1950s, 12 million black Americans were largely ignored in
the
New York Times. Since that time, however, the volume of the coverage
has
increased and the nature of the coverage has been much more
multifaceted.
Conversely, the other racial groups have been nearly invisible for much of
the time period studied. Even Latinos, who received more coverage than
the other two groups, did not receive until the 1990s an amount of
coverage
anywhere near what African Americans got back in the 1950s. Native
Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans were, like an earlier researcher
said about black Americans, visible only in glimpses in the New York
Times,
and a reader would have to search hard to catch even these glimpses.
No suggestion is made here that the amount of coverage of any racial group
should be in direct proportion to the group's share in the general
population. It does seem surprising, however, that people of color who are
not African American receive such small amounts of coverage in comparison
to blacks.
According to the 1990 census, African Americans comprise 12 percent of the
U.S. population and total nearly 30 million people. Latinos, an ethnic
rather than a racial group, comprise 9 percent and total 22 million.
Asian
Americans, at seven million, represent 3 percent of the total population,
and Native Americans comprise nearly 1 percent at almost two
million.17
Given these facts, it is surprising that the amount of coverage of Latinos
found in this study was so much less than the coverage of African
Americans. The number of Latinos in the population is three-fourths the
number of African Americans, yet the amount of coverage of Latinos
found
was less than a tenth the amount found on African Americans. This
seems
wildly disproportionate.
This finding is also surprising considering the growing Latino population
in the states along this nation's southern and western borders, and
the
growing Asian population on the West Coast and in cities throughout the
country. The 1990 census revealed that between 1980 and 1990 the Asian
population has increased over 100 percent and the Hispanic population
has
grown 50 percent, as compared to 13 percent for the black population
and 6
percent for whites.18 These facts underlie the often-quoted statistic
that
by the year 2010 one out of every three Americans will be a member of a
racial or ethnic minority.19 Yet it seems that those people are a
foreign
population for the New York Times, despite the fact that the families
of
millions of them have been in this country as long as, or longer than,
our
German or Irish or Italian or middle European-descended citizens.
The coverage of African Americans escalated so sharply in 1958 partly
because of Sugar Ray Robinson winning the title, and also because of the
many stories found about the controversies surrounding school
integration
in Little Rock. The coverage remained high throughout the 1960s
because of
similar controversies, like James Meredith enrolling at Ole Miss. But to
the New York Times' credit, the volume of coverage climbed even higher
in
the 1970s, when the confrontational aspects of the Civil Rights
Movement
had largely diminished. This probably is due partly to an increased
sensitivity to news about blacks on the part of Times managers, and partly
because of the presence of many more black journalists in the paper's
newsroom. Although the coverage totals fell off sharply in the 1980s, it
is encouraging to note that it increased to its highest level yet in
the
1990s issues sampled, and represented considerable variety in the
kinds of
topics covered.
Concerning the nature of the news about African Americans, the Times
offered a clear picture throughout the period studied of discrimination
and
violence against blacks, and also provided some coverage in each decade of
problems facing black Americans. It is disheartening to note, however,
that the continued increased attention to African Americans from the
1970s
on has included increased attention to crimes committed by blacks.
Also
discouraging was the Quindlan column from the 1990s raising the tired
old
stereotype of black men raping white women. The stereotype is even
more
offensive given the fact that the overwhelming majority of rape
victims are
attacked by men of their own race.
It is interesting to note the theme in stories, present from the 1970s on,
of black-Latino cooperation, in protests and politics. A new theme, of
black-Asian American hostility, emerged in the 1990s. Some experts on
racism suggest that white leaders encourage among whites the belief that
society's benefits, such as jobs and housing and social services, are
like
a pie, and that minorities are competing with whites and with each
other
for shares of that pie.20 Without embracing that belief, one
nevertheless
wonders if the paper's attention to cooperation and hostility among
minorities is based upon a unconsciously held stereotype along the lines of
the pie image. Emphasis on cooperation among minorities could stem from
approval of the groups' cooperating to obtain a larger slice of the
pie,
while attention to inter-group hostility could reinforce a view of the
groups as bad children squabbling among themselves.
The coverage of Native Americans was so sparse that it did indeed provide
a picture of these people only in glimpses. Most noticeable was the
attention given to problems facing Native Americans, which reinforces the
claim of various researchers that minorities are presented as people
outside the mainstream of American society by presenting them as problem
people. This kind of coverage accounted for 27 percent of the total
coverage of Native Americans, larger than the problem coverage given to
any
other minority group. While it is positive that the paper was willing to
explore problems facing Native Americans, their culture and
experiences are
broader and more multifaceted than simply their problems, and these other
aspects of Native life deserve coverage also. Only Natives' relations
with
the government and their political activities received similar attention.
It was positive that in the case of both Native Americans and Asian
Americans the New York Times frequently identified the group by the name
by
which they wished to be known, like Navajos or Chinese Americans, instead
of simply lumping people together into one amorphous group. Making
distinctions among the subgroups of larger minority groups is a practice
approved of by many minorities.
Latinos also received very small amounts of coverage, although more than
Natives and Asian Americans, and it is encouraging that the coverage
climbed so sharply in the 1990s issues studied. Considerably less
encouraging is the very large percentage--38 percent--of the coverage
devoted to crimes committed by (and in many cases suffered by) Latinos
over
the time period studied. Also noticeable was the emphasis, especially in
the 1970s issues sampled, on cooperative actions undertaken by African
Americans and Purerto Ricans. The positive story about Latino behavior
after the Northridge earthquake was a heartening note.
An emphasis on criminal activity also was noted in the small amount of
coverage of Asian Americans found. Of the total coverage of these
people
over the time studied, 23 percent was devoted to crime news. Even
worse
was the fact that 96 percent of the crime news involved crimes
committed by
Chinese Americans. Clearly a stereotype is operating here, and
influencing media managers to choose to run crime news involving Chinese
Americans. Although other items about Chinese Americans were run, the
overwhelming majority of it was about crime.
The emphasis in the 1990s issues sampled on black hostility toward Asian
Americans, which accounted for two-thirds of the coverage found in
those
issues, is a very negative note. Once again the Asian Americans are
shown
as the "cause" of a problem. Worthy of note here is the "like
attracts
like" phenomenon noticed by this researcher during the coding.
Frequently
the coder would sample scores of issues without finding a single item
about
Native Americans, say, or about Asian Americans. Then suddenly two or
three such items, all unrelated, would appear in one issue. It almost
seemed as though wire editors were thinking to themselves, "We've
included
one item about Native Americans in this issue; now here's
another--let's
run it too.)
The same phenomenon was noticed in the coding of the 1990 issues, when
stories began appearing about African American boycotts of Korean
American-owned stores. It seemed as though this situation sensitized
editors to the issue of black-Asian American hostility, and the coder
began
finding stories about black youths attacking a Vietnamese, or about black
hostility toward Asian Americans in general.
In contrast to the coverage of Native Americans and African Americans,
very little coverage of problems facing Latino or Asian Americans was
found. Only two stories, both on problems Latinos share with blacks,
were
found in the issues coded, and only one story on a problem facing
Asian
Americans was found.
In summary, then, the New York Times coverage of African Americans,
although quite sparse during most of the first three decade under study,
was found to have increased sharply in volume and complexity from 1958
onward, and to have taken another sharp upward rise beginning in 1990.
Coverage of the other three groups was extremely limited, and was not
nearly enough, in either volume or breadth of topics covered, to give
white
readers any kind of real understanding of the daily lives, the issues and
the problems of these people who comprise such large and growing
segments
of American society. Instead, these groups have been largely ignored
and
presented as outside the mainstream of society. As much as it is
possible
to generalize from such a small amount of coverage found, Native
Americans
were presented primarily in terms of their problems and, to a smaller
extent, in terms of their relations with the government and in political
activities. Latinos were shown with a strong emphasis on crimes
committed
by Latinos, and, to a smaller extent, in terms of shared action and
concerns with black Americans. Coverage of both Native Americans and
Latinos did rise sharply in the 1990s issues sampled.
Asian Americans came off perhaps the worst, in terms
of total amount of coverage, a decline in coverage in the 1990s issues
sampled, and lack of complexity of coverage. The only topic that
received
consistent attention throughout the time period studied was crimes
committed by Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans. Asian
Americans also showed up in the 1990s coverage as the targets of black
boycotts and hostility. This is a pitiful picture, and in no way
represents the reality of Asian Americans' lives in this country.
Although the New York Times has done much better in its coverage of
African Americans during the past 35 years, it clearly still has a long
way
to go to accurately portray the everyday life and concerns of the Native
Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans who are a large and important
part
of our society. Not only were these people visible only in glimpses in
the
issues studied, but their images were badly burred and distorted.
References
1. It should be noted here that Latinos or Hispanics are defined by
language and can be of any race. They are portrayed in this section of
the
paper as a racial group only because they have long been perceived as one
by white American society.
2. Editorial, "Trustee's Holiday Remarks More Than Just Insensitive," The
Herald, Sharon, PA, 18 January 1995, p. 10.
3. Florence Rebekah Beatty-Brown, "The Negro as Portrayed by the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch from 1920 to 1950," Diss. Univ. of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, 1951, pp. 7, 10, 12; see also George E. Simpson, The
Negro in the Philadelphia Press (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania
Press), 1936, pp. 6, 116; Noel P. Gist, "The Negro in the Daily Press,"
Social Forces 10, no. 3 (March 1932), 406-11.
4. Robert L. Latta, "A Content Analysis of News of Black Americans as
Presented by the Wichita Eagle and a Comparison with Empirical Data,"
Journalism Abstracts 9 (1971), 225; Helen Louise Tatro, "Local News
Coverage of Blacks in Five Deep South Newspapers, 1950 to 1970," Journalism
Abstracts 10 (1972), 336; Paula Johnson, David Sears and John McConahay,
"Black Invisibility, the Press and the Los Angeles Riot," American
Journal
of Sociology 76, no. 4 (January 1971), 706-7, 718.
5. Carolyn Martindale, The White Press and Black America (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1986), pp. 79-94; Carolyn Martindale, "Coverage of
Black
Americans in Four Major Newspapers, 1950-1989," Newspaper Research
Journal
11, no. 3 (Summer 1990), 102-109.
6. David A. Copeland, "'The Sculking Indian Enemy': Colonial Newspapers'
Portrayal of Native Americans," paper presented at the Association for
Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention, Kansas City,
MO,
August 1993.
7. John M. Coward, "News and the 'Indian Problem' in the Antebellum
Period," paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism
and
Mass Communication convention Washington DC, August 1989; Robert
Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man's Indian (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), p.
3.
8. Mary Ann Weston, "Native Americans in the News: Symbol, Stereotype or
Substance?", paper presented at the Association for Education in
Journalism
and Mass Communication convention in Montreal, August 1992; James Murphy
and Sharon Murphy, Let My People Know: American Indian Journalism,
1828-1978 (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1981).
9. L. Sanchez, "Treatment of Mexican Americans by Selected U.S.
Newspapers, January-June 1970," thesis Pennsylvania State Univ., 1973; J.
Fishman and H. Casiano, "Puerto Ricans in Press," Modern Language
Journal
53, no. 3 (1969), 157-62; Felix Gutierrez, "Latinos and Public
Broadcasting: An Agenda for the 1980s," paper presented at the Latinos
in
Public Broadcasting Conference, San Diego, January 1980, and "Latinos
and
the Media in the United States: An Overview," paper presented at the
International Communication Association conference, Acapulco, May 1980;
Bradley Greenberg et al, Mexican Americans & the Mass Media (Norwood,
NJ:
Ablex, 1983), pp. 202-203, 220-23.
10. Thomas Heuterman, "'We Have the Same Rights as Other Citizens':
Coverage of Yakima Valley Japanese Americans in the 'Missing Decades' of
the 1920s and 1930s," Journalism History 14, no. 4 (Winter 1987), 94,
101-102; Myron Jordan, "Headlines, Torchlight and Terror: Press
Competition Failed to Produce Diversity in Tacoma's Chinese Exclusion
Movement in 1885," paper presented to the West Coast Journalism
Historians'
Conference, San Francisco, 1966; Charles Siegel, "West Coast Press Opinion
and Propaganda and the Japanese Exclusion Act of 1924," thesis, Washington
State Univ., 1949.
11. Project Zinger: A Critical Look at News Media Coverage of Asian
Pacific Americans (San Francisco: Center for Integration and
Improvement
of Journalism, Asian American Journalists Association, 1993), p. 1.
12. News Watch: A Critical Look at Coverage of People of Color (San
Francisco: Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism, San
Francisco State Univ., 1994), p. 36.
13. Ibid., p. 48.
14. Ibid., pp. 44-45.
15. Ibid., pp. 40-41.
16. Clint C. Wilson II and Felix Gutierrez, Minorities and Media:
Diversity and the End of Mass Communication (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985), p.
137-39.
17. U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census.
1990 Census of Population, General Population Characteristics, U.S.
(Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1992).
18. U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census.
U.S. Population, by Race and Hispanic Origin: 1970 to 1990 (Washington
DC: Government Printing Office, 1992).
19. Harold Hodgkinson, A Demographic Look at Tomorrow (Washington DC:
Center for Demographic Policy, 1992).
20. C.T. Vivian, speech at National Conference on Racial and Ethnic
Relations in American Higher Education, Santa Fe, June 1990; Teun Van
Dijk,
"Social Cognition, Social Power and Social Discourse," special issue of
Text, an interdisciplinary journal for the study of discourse, vol.
8-1/2
(1988), Amsterdam: Univ. of Amsterdam, pp. 143, 145.
|
