The Race for Equal Coverage

Sometimes colorblindness is just blindness.

Many classes I have taken - both as a Missouri School of Journalism student and as one getting her minor is sociology - have opened my eyes to the issue of colorblindness. Culturally, society differentiates between skin color: both in bad ways such as racism and in good ways such as the celebration of the diverse and unique cultures that comprise the flavor of a nation.

If people - viewers - differentiate between race, our newscasts should not be totally colorblind. Responsible reporting of race is required in any newsroom, of course, and, gone about in the right way, it can bring education and awareness of important cultural, social, ethnic and racial issues into peoples' homes.

Two recent issues have brought race into my mind for this blog entry. First, I fielded a call from a viewer who had a strong opinion about a particular instance of race omission in a KOMU-8 TV newscast. Second, an editorial report about the "racial wealth gap" on CNN.com got me thinking about the "fault lines" we discussed in my Cross-Cultural Journalism class.

My Experience

I received an angry call from a viewer the other night while working the assignment desk and tending to KOMU.com.

A woman phoned in after KOMU-8 TV ran in our 6 p.m. newscast a story about a man who robbed a local store. Here's the description we gave:

50-year-old male

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 160 pounds

Wearing a short-sleeved shirt, jeans and cap

The police report, however, also listed his race. The viewer who called in said we should have reported his race because there were enough other descriptors to give an accurate portrayal of what the man looks like - enough to possibly lead to his arrest.

And she was right.

KOMU-8 TV has been discussing with its employees its policy about reporting a suspect's race lately - so much so that it was the topic of this week's Your View segment, in which anchor Sarah Hill discusses one or several viewers' comments. See that report here.

While the suspect's race did not make the newscast, it did make the web story, as the person working on KOMU.com at the time we received the press release decided the description was detailed enough to merit the inclusion of race.

This whole ordeal speaks to the need for not only attention to detail in police reports and asking what description will best equip viewers to be on the lookout for this person, but also communication between all jobs in the newsroom. Had the dotcom editor and 6 p.m. newscast producer spoken, perhaps this could have been avoided.

For the sake of transparency and accuracy, having several pairs of eyes look over anything that's going on air is required, though sometimes the race toward a 5, 6, or 10 p.m. deadline limits that.

Journalism Response

Commentary: Closing the racial wealth gap

By Thomas Shapiro*

CNN.com

*Thomas Shapiro is director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management and author of The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality.

Shapiro opens his article by writing, "Closing the racial wealth gap needs to be at the forefront of efforts to achieve economic opportunity in the 21st century." With that, he launches into an explanation of the accumulation of wealth - or deprivation.

Caucasians, particularly white men, who started off as the ones in power back in America's foundational days, passed that status down from generation to generation. While the Civil Rights Movement, awareness and overall education of people have helped lessen that "power gap" over the centuries, a gap nonetheless remains - not only socially, but also financially.

The appreciation of a house's value, much like a stand-up or live shot in a TV news story, is, as Shapiro writes, all about "location, location, location." Although, whereas a reporter is looking for a visually-interesting background, Shapiro is referring to the "racial and ethnic makeup of the community."

This strikes me in regards to Columbia, Missouri.

A quick background, as I understand it: Legend has it we are the Mizzou Tigers because, during the Civil War, the Yankee men "fought like Tigers" to keep the Confederate line from advancing to Columbia. How much truth there is to that, I don't know. However, it's the legend that is important here, because despite commemorating the staving off of the south and all the segregation it embodied, Columbia still appears partitioned.

"Mid-town," as I like to say, is "Collegeville": Mizzou, Stephens College, Columbia College, etc. The south side feels a bit like the Minnesotan suburbs, where I grew up. The north side is noticeably more populated by people of a lower socio-economic status and/or of minority groups than the other parts of Columbia.

The metaphorical "fault lines" of race and socio-economic status are literal here, and the questions I have are how and whether to address it. Is doing a story on an African American heritage festival in town enough, or should I be addressing the issue Shapiro brings up in his article?

Shapiro's writes, "The racial wealth inequality is the hidden fault line of American democracy. We need a new civil rights movement for the 21st century that focuses on economic opportunity and inclusion and closing the racial wealth gap."

This article is a good example of raising awareness through journalism without bias. Shapiro, CNN.com points out, wrote this article "Special to CNN," but is not a staff writer.

This is a huge topic - bigger than I can even begin to cover in a single blog entry. However, know that it's on my mind - both in regards to news coverage and how I go about the city in which I live.

On a final note, I encourage you to read Shapiro's article, as it provides some really interesting food for thought and hard-number examples of the wealth disparity between African Americans and Caucasians - particularly in this economic climate.