Content-Type: text/html African American Pictorial Coverage in Four U.S. Newspapers Paul Martin Lester Associate Professor Department of Communications H-230 California State University, Fullerton Fullerton, California 92634 OFFICE: 714.449.5302; MAIN OFFICE: 714.773.3517; FAX: 714.773.2209; E-MAIL: [log in to unmask] "les"; WORLD WIDE WEB: http://www5.fullerton.edu/les/homeboy.html and Randy Miller Assistant Professor School of Mass Communications University of South Florida Submitted for Consideration to the AEJMC Visual Communication Division for the Annual Conference Anaheim, California August, 1996 ABSTRACT In a study that analyzed more than 40,000 photographs in four U.S. newspapers, among the findings was that coverage of African Americans had increased while stereotypical coverage had generally decreased compared with a similar study of the same newspapers. It is concluded that journalists need to make continued strides to represent visually all members within a publication's community. African American Pictorial Coverage in Four U.S. Newspapers Submitted for Consideration to the AEJMC Visual Communication Division for the Annual Conference Anaheim, California August, 1996 One of the recommendations at the conclusion of Lester's content analysis of pictorial coverage of African Americans in four U.S. newspapers that covered a time-span from 1937 until 1990 was: Researchers should continue to monitor the coverage of these large newspapers to evaluate continued progress _ .[1] With that challenge in mind, the present study looks at the African American photo coverage for 1995 for the same newspapers used in the previous study by Lester. Much news involving African Americans has occurred since 1990 to make one assume that African American coverage has increased from previous yearsDthe beating of Rodney King, the subsequent trial, and the civil unrest in Los Angeles, the presidential bid of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the emergence of Gen. Colin Powell as a national figure in both military and political arenas, the legal and marital problems of Michael Jackson, the double-murder trial of O.J. Simpson, and the "Million Man March." But is the coverage better? Or more to the point, is the coverage less stereotypical? Lester and others have shown that although coverage has increased throughout the years studied, African American content categories typically cluster around three primary topicsDsports, entertainment, and crime.[2] Such emphasis maintains the stereotypical assumptions of readers and viewers that the media often communicate. In the preface to a recently published collection of essays detailing the media stereotypes of ethnic, gender, age, physical disabilities, sexual orientation, and job-related categories, Images that Injure Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, Everette Dennis of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center writes, Stereotypes have come a long way since Walter Lippmann first proffered his formulation of "pictures in our heads." On the one hand, stereotypes are rather negatively defined as "a conventional, formulaic and oversimplified conception, opinion or image," while on the other they communicate dramatically and well. For visual communicators, whether photographers, videographers, filmmakers, cartoonists, or graphic artists, stereotypes are useful devices because they are easily understood and make a clear, if unfair and at times hurtful, point. For cartoonists, such depiction is part of their job description, but for communicators charged with an accurate representation of news and information, even entertainment fare, they can be damaging and dangerous [emphasis added].[3] The news media, then, are put on a high standard because of the journalism mission to portray persons in the community accurately, completely, and fairly. As with the previous study, this research attempts to address five hypotheses about the African American photo coverage in four newspapers: H1: There will be an overall increase in African American pictorial coverage. H2: There will be similar content category patterns for all seven publications. H3: Stereotypical coverage will decrease overall. H4: Non-stereotypical coverage will increase overall. H5: The four newspapers will show similar African American front page percentages. METHOD As with the previous study, a content analysis of the pictorial treatment of African Americans was performed for all Monday to Friday issues for March, June, September, and December, for 1995, of The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Obviously, the methodology, publications and dates were chosen to coincide with the previous research. Several researchers, including Woodburn, Miller, Blackwood, Stempel and Sherer, have written that pictorial evidence using content analysis is a good method for analyzing a publication's record in media stereotyping.[4] Because readers often obtain their first impressions of a story by noticing the picture that accompanies it first, photographs are powerful communicative devices. As Lester notes in Visual Communication Images With Messages, Because pictures affect a viewer emotionally more than words alone do, pictorial stereotypes often become misinformed perceptions that have the weight of established facts. These pictures can remain in a person's mind throughout a lifetime.[5] The unit of analysis was the human figure picture. A human figure photograph is one that has at least one person within the frame of the image. Still-lives and scenics without people and images that only showed a person's hands or feet were not included as well as graphic illustrations. Coverage of foreign persons of African descent was not included. If a newspaper printed several zones, the metro edition was used. All human figure photographs, then, were counted, and pictures with African Americans were divided into specific content categories. The subject categories were sports, advertising, human interest, entertainment, crime, politics, education, social problems, business, high society, accident, religion, war, health, and science. In addition, coders noted if African Americans were featured on the front page or cover. The fifteen categories are defined as: Sports. Any sports-related feature or action picture. Advertising. Any non-editorial picture used to sell a product or service. Human Interest. A photograph where everyday life activities are featured that shows no regard to racial considerations. Fashion photography, weather, and obituaries also fit this category. Entertainment. Any celebrity when connected with a performance featured in a photograph. Crime. Any police coverage, the accused, trials, legal personnel, or victims within a crime-related picture. Politics. Any photograph of a politician or political event. Education. Any school-related picture. Social Problems. Societal issues that affect African Americans directly. Business. Pictures that involve money matters and business activities. Social News. Any image that details high society including weddings and anniversaries. Accident. Pictures of events either caused by people or natural. Religion. A picture that gives details about a religious service, event, or individual. War. Any picture where the violent acts of war are depicted or where persons prepare for or engage in war-related activities. Health. Pictorial coverage related to individual or environmental health issues. Science. Images that detail scientific breakthroughs, information, or news about a scientist. To coincide with the previous studies, the fifteen subject categories were combined into four main groupsDstereotypical images (sports, entertainment, and crime), race-blind images (human interest, accident, religion, war, and science), special interest images (politics, education, social problems, business, high society, and health), and advertising images. "Race-blind" images refer to those pictures in which the subject of the photograph happen to be African American while "special interest" images refer to content that features African Americans in a meaningful way. Each researcher coded approximately half of all the images for this study. FINDINGS Content coders examined 337 issues and found 40,127 human figure pictures and 6,987 African American images. The analysis yielded mixed results for the hypotheses (See Table 1): H1: There will be an overall increase in African American pictorial coverage. The hypothesis is supported. Every newspaper showed an increase in African American pictorial coverage with all but the San Francisco Chronicle exhibiting an increase of over 100 percent. H2: There will be similar content category patterns for all newspapers. Mixed results for the hypothesis. For the stereotypical images category, the Tribune showed a higher percentage compared with the similar pattern exhibited for the other newspapers. For the race-blind images category, the Times and the Tribune had similar percentages while the Times-Picayune exhibited a dramatic increase in the human interest category and the Chronicle showed a dramatic decrease in human interest pictures. For the special interest images category, the overall pattern of percentages is similar for the Times, Tribune, and Chronicle while the Times-Picayune is higher because of its emphasis on social news. For the advertising images category, there is no discernible pattern of percentages between the newspapers with the Time-Picayune being the lowest and the Chronicle being the highest. H3: Stereotypical coverage will decrease overall. Mixed results for the hypothesis. Except for the Times which showed a marginal increase in stereotypical coverage, all the other newspapers exhibited a marked decrease in such pictorial coverage, with the Chronicle lower than as much as 14 percentage points. H4: Non-stereotypical coverage will increase overall. Mixed results for the hypothesis. Although the Times and the Tribune percentages remained about the same compared with the previous study, the Times-Picayune showed a dramatic rise in human interest and social news content categories. However, the Chronicle exhibited a much lower percentage for human interest images. H5: The four newspapers will show similar African American front page percentages. Mixed results for the hypothesis. The Times and the Chronicle showed a relatively low percentage of front pages that contained one or more pictures of African Americans compared with the high percentages of the Tribune and the Times-Picayune. RESULTS Perhaps not surprising given the increased emphasis on visual communication in all manner of media, all four newspapers in this study dramatically increased their overall picture figure and their overall African American image figure. Consequently, the overall African American picture percentage for every newspaper is above 11.3 percent, the African American population percentage for the United States. John Wheatley has noted that African American percentages should mimic the population figure if one is to conclude that image selections were not a result of racial selection.[6] However, Lester points out that: There is no advantage in publishing a larger percentage of African Americans if those images are mostly crime, sports, and entertainment subjects.[7] The present study has shown that for most of the newspapers, progress has been made in reducing the stereotypical images while increasing the non-stereotypical portrayals of African Americans. However, much work still needs to be accomplished. The New York Times. As the newspaper out of the four most recognized as a national leader in the field of journalism, it is startling to note the almost similar pattern in percentages in every subject category compared with the findings in the previous study. Although the overall percentage of African American images increased by almost twice as much, the distribution of those images indicates a strong emphasis on sports with little or no interest in many of the other categories. The Times also contained the smallest percentage for front page pictures among the other newspapers. The results of the present study indicates that this is a national newspaper that must take a hard look whether it is serving a national audience. The Chicago Tribune. With the highest percentage of stereotypical images of all the other newspapers in the previous study, the Tribune had no where else to go with this category but lower. Although this study recorded a dramatic rise in entertainment pictures and a slight increase in crime subject, there is over a 10-percentage decrease in sports images. The race-blind and special interest image categories are remarkably similar while advertising images increased markedly. This is a newspaper, then, that seems to be making conscious changes in its pictorial coverage. The San Francisco Chronicle. This newspaper registered only a slight increase in the overall African American picture percentage. Compared with the other newspapers, the small increase coupled with a poor front page percentage and a dramatic decrease in the percentage of human interest pictures, the result is apparent. However, the overall stereotypical image percentage, especially with regards to sports photos, is down while the advertising image category increased while almost twice as much. This is a newspaper that needs to make further progress in its reduction of sports coverage while dramatic improvement needs to be accomplished in most of the other categories. The New Orleans Times-Picayune. In many ways, the results of this study indicate that the Times-Picayune could be a model for other newspapers around the country. For example, the overall African American pictorial percentage is 23.7, twice the national figure. Such a result indicates that the editors at the Times-Picayune, serving in a state with an African American percentage of 29.4, at sensitive to the sentiment expressed by Lester in his previous study when he writes that: Percentages of photographs representing African Americans should reflect the regional populations the newspapers serve. A newspaper does not only serve its readers or advertisers. A newspaper does not only serve its journalists. A newspaper serves it community. Part of the challenge to produce a daily document is to make sure that the entire community is servedDregardless of whether some segments of the community subscribes to the newspaper or not.[8] Further evidence of this commitment to community journalism is seen in the low overall stereotypical image category, the high human interest subject category, and the reasonable percentage totals for the special interest and advertising images. This newspaper also has the highest front page percentage of any of the other three. African Americans are visible in the Times-Picayune without sacrificing stereotypical coverage. CONCLUSIONS The tone of the conclusion in the previous study, for which the present work is a continuation, was a bit disheartening. For although progress had been made through the years in including African Americans within the pages of these popular publications, sports, entertainment, and crime were the primary content categories. The present study indicates that although stereotypical coverage is still the mainstay of African American pictorial use in these four newspapers, the general trend shows decreases in such coverage with conversely increase in other content categories. That is not to say that more work needs to be done. The content category percentages for accident, religion, war, science, and health are shockingly low with little increases over the percentages shown in the previous study. Are there really no African American scientists or doctors working in these four communities? A concentrated effort must be made to show readers that African Americans provide a wide range of issues and services to the community apart from those that automatically and stereotypically come to mind. It is hoped that by the end of the century when a similar study is completed, the results that were demonstrated for the Times-Picayune will be repeated in the other newspapers but with a notable exceptionDthe percentages for race-blind and special interest image categories will exceed that of the stereotypical image category. And once that step is accomplished, journalists will come to understand that community, civic, or public journalism involves full, fair, and free access to pictorial representation by all cultural groupsDwhether based on ethnic, gender, physical, sexual, or professional characteristicsDwithin the pages of a community, civic, or public publication. [1] Paul Martin Lester, "African-American Photo Coverage in Four U.S. Newspapers, 1937-1990," Journalism Quarterly 71/2 (Summer 1994): 380-394. [2] See Carolyn Martindale, The White Press and Black America (NY: Greenwood Press, 1986) and Alice Sentman, "Black and White: Disparity in Coverage by Life Magazine from 1937 to 1972," Journalism Quarterly 60 (Autumn 1983): 501-508. [3] Everette Dennis, "Preface," in Paul Martin Lester (ed.), Images that Injure Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1996), p. ix. [4] See Bert Woodburn, "Reader Interest in Newspaper Pictures," Journalism Quarterly 24 (Autumn 1947): 197, Susan Miller, "The Content of News Photos: Women's and Men's Roles," Journalism Quarterly 52 (Spring 1975): 72, Roy Blackwood, "The Content of News Photos: Roles Portrayed by Men and Women," Journalism Quarterly 60 (Winter 1983): 711, Guido Stempel, "Visibility of Blacks in News and News-Picture Magazines," Journalism Quarterly 48 (Summer 1971): 337-339, and Michael D. Sherer, "Vietnam War Photos and Public Opinion," Journalism Quarterly 66 (Summer 1989): 391-92. [5] Paul Martin Lester, Visual Communication Images With Messages (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1995), p. 103. [6] John Wheatley, "The Use of Black Models in Advertising," Journal of Marketing Research 8 (August 1971): 391. [7] Lester, "African-American Photo Coverage," 381. [8] Ibid., 393.