Mass Media and New York

Racism and Ethnic twist in the Media Is a Serious Problem press Media,2010 Journalists who envisage they live on communities of glossary end up writing stereotypical stories. In the quest popular opinionpoint from her reference with Lena-Snomeka Gomes, Elizabeth Llorente states that unequal and inaccurate representations of minorities becalm persist in the media, and media professionals who be minorities continue to give prejudice in the industry. In Llorentes view, reporters of discolour often odor unwelcome when entering w throwe communities. In addition, she claims new(prenominal) journalists continue to draw upon harmful cultural and religious stereotypes.Diversity and opportunities for minorities in newsrooms besides atomic number 18 lacking, she contends, compounding these problems. Llorente is an award-winning senior reporter forThe Recordin Bergen, brand-new Jersey. A former news economizer, Gomes is a program support specializer at the Homeless Childrens Network in San Francisco. As you read, consider the chase questions 1. According to Llorente, why is practical application ones own ethnic community non necessarily easier? 2. What barriers do reporters face when reporting on immigrants, in the authors view? 3. Why argon in that location still very few minorities in newsrooms, in Llorentes opinion?Elizabeth Llorente, senior reporter forThe Recordin Bergen, New Jersey, was recently honored with the move Achievement Award from the Lets Do It infract Workshop on Race and Ethnicity at the Columbia University Graduate cultivate of Journalism. Llorente was honored for her to a greater extent than 10 years of reporting on the nations changing demographics. Her series, Diverse and Divided, documented the racial tensions and political struggles between Latino immigrants and Afri lav Ameri brush asides in Patterson, N. J. Llorente spoke withNewsWatch active the nuances of reporting on cannonball along and ethnicity.Lena-Snomeka Gom es What are more or less of the major barriers journalists face, especially journalists of color when writing about race and ethnicity? Elizabeth Llorente Well it depends on what they look like. For example, I hunch over that some of the African American reporters that I go for worked with have spoken about feelings of universe unwelcome, especially when theyre covering white areas. And there are also former(a) reporters who feel different beca drop they stand out from the time they walk into a room. People make assumptions about them. I have been told that its hard to verbalise what my race is.Is this positive or negative? Maybe it helps when Im doing a business relationship about tension and whites are part of the tension. Sometimes, I suspect, they open up more beca pulmonary tuberculosis they dont know that I am Hispanic. Perhaps, they would non have been as candid had they known. However, its not necessarily easier to cover stories in your own ethnic community or commun ities similar to yours. If you criticize people and they didnt like it, they are usually less forgiving. They take it somebodyal and see you as a traitor, especially when the stories involve a politically charged group.Do you guess journalists of color are resistant to writing about race and ethnicity because they dont want to be typecast so to speak? There are people who intend that and I dont blame them. Sometimes thats all the papers will let them do, and the papers dont value their work. In that regard, its a thankless job. When you come foul with a slap-up story, they dont see the skill and the talent it took to report and write that story. They think, of course, you wrote well because youre one of them. They automatically assume it was easy for you to get the story.They whitethorn even question your objectivity. But, when Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Bragg went to the South to write about the animation he knew, no one said, of course its easy for him because hes from the South. No, they said, wow hes a great writer. Do you think stories about race and ethnicity still face being calendared for special events or has there been more sustained reportage and focus? Its gotten much better. Stories used to be covered for Black narrative Month or Cinco de Mayo, alone now beats have been created slightly race and ethnicity.Beat reporters have to write all year. Reporters are interested in writing about race and ethnicity. They want to cover these issues. Now the future(a) level journalism needs to go to is to spread the responsibility of covering race and ethnicity among all reporters, in all sections of the paper, business section, education, transportation, and municipal. Coverage has to be more comprehensive. It cannot be reserved for indisputable reporters, because race and ethnicity is such a huge area. Immigration Stories How do stories about immigration differ from other stories about race and ethnicity?If youre writing about second or troika generation Cubans, youre writing about Americans, a minority group that has some stake here. With immigrants, youre writing about people who are newer, who dont necessarily feel American. They are still transitioning into this national culture. They are rebuilding their identities. For example, they may not have a sense of (their) civil rights here or of American racism. What skills do journalists have to master in order to report evenhandedly and accurately on immigrant communities? First of all, you need to have a entirely open mind.This is especially important when youre covering immigrant communities. So some(prenominal) of us think that we know the immigrant groups, but many of us only know the stereotypes. Too often we set out to write stories that end up marginalizing people in harmful ways because the stories tend to exacerbate those stereotypes. Or we ignore the stories that do not conform to the stereotypes. For example, if were going to write about Hispanic com munities, instead of looking for Hispanics in the suburbs, we tend to go where we can most readily reclaim them, in Miami, Spanish Harlem, and in the Barrio.We keep open telling the same stories and giving it the same frame, because its an easy thing to do when youre on a deadline. The result is an ok story. But immigration stories are diverse. They are not only in enclaves, but also in places we never thought about finding them in, such as in once exclusively white suburbs and rural America. Perhaps Hispanics in the barrio is a valuable story, but that is no longer the Hispanic story. It is a Hispanic story. Okay, once you find (immigrant communities) how do you communicate with them? Its tough.Not knowing the language can be difficult. But the key is to sensory facultyt out with the attitude of not settling for less. Start out speaking with the leading, but only as a vehicle to reach the other people who are not always in the papers. Too many of us s natural covering with the leaders and that is not enough. Ask them to introduce you or ask them if you can use their name to open up a few doors for you to speak with others in the community. However, covering immigrant communities doesnt mean encountering a language barrier. Many people have a basic knowledge of English.You can still conduct an interview with someone who only speaks survival English. But, you will also run into a lot of people who dont speak English. If you make the effort, if youre patient, if you speak slower and are conscious of the words you use, if you make sure they at a lower placestand what you are intercommunicate them, if you tune in, youll make the connection. Finally, if language is a barrier and youre not comfortable, find someone who is bilingual to help you interpret. How can journalists write balanced stories if they proceed from the stereotypes?Ask the person youre interviewing to break down those stereotypes. You can tell the person that there is a particular stereotype and ask them if it is true or not. Journalists have the unique role and power to help break the stereotypes down. What does receiving the Career Achievement Award mean to you? I was hoping that it would mean that I could hand over and go sailing and write my novels from a log cabin. After I checked my retirement savings, I realized, that aint gonna happen for a long time. Its enough to get awards, but when you get one its usually for a certain story or project.This is like a terrific embrace that says, you know, you hit the ball out of the park again and again. You set a commonplace in this business. At a career level, you have done great work. Its just a nice sweeping kiss and hug to me. The finale of Journalism Tell me some of the successes Lets Do It Better has had and some of the ways in which it has impacted the culture of journalism. I think one wonderful thing they did, under Sig Gissler (original founder), was that they targeted the gatekeepers. His model approach was to go directly to the top management.Gissler wanted to show them good reporting that reached a higher level and how stories about race were more nuanced. He wanted them to read the stories and whence to talk to the folks who wrote them so they could learn how to do these types of stories. Did the top oppose? Yes I saw conversions. People who started out cynically were changed by the utmost day. They were beginning to look at race and ethnicity stories critically. They were going to raise their standard. They odd the workshops believing that their news organizations needed more diverse voices.Why, are there still so few people of color in newsrooms instantly? Too many employers are prejudiced. Too many minorities are still being hired under a cloud of doubt. I dont think many minorities are hired with the notion that they will be star reporters. They are not nurtured. Then when minority journalists leave its seen as a betrayal, but when whites leave, its considered a good career move. I have worked with many white reporters who have had many opportunities in training and promotions, and nobody says theyre thankless s. o. b. s when they leave.Can we keep doing it better? Of course. There are still so many stories we are not getting that are out there. Journalists who think they know communities of color end up writing stereotypical stories and they use photos to make people look exotic. In fact, we need to pay more attention to photojournalism. A story can be fair and balanced, but if that picture projects the exotic stereotype, the story loses its value. Dont bypass a photo of a person because they dont look ethnic enough. Take a picture of the redheaded Mexican or the Muslim women wearing Levi jeans.Further Readings Books * Bonnie M. AndersonNews ostentation Journalism, Infotainment, and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcast News. San Francisco Jossey-Bass, 2004. * Ben BagdikianThe New Media Monopoly. Boston Beacon Press, 2004. * Michael A. BanksBlogg ing Heroes Interviews with 30 of the Worlds pass Bloggers. Indianapolis Wiley Publishing, 2008. * Pablo J. BoczkowskiDigitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers. Cambridge, MA MIT Press, 2004. * L. Brent BozellWeapons of Mass Distortion The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media. New York Three Rivers Press, 2005. Asa Briggs and puppet BurkeA Social History of the Media From Gutenberg to the Internet. 2nd ed. Malden, MA Polity, 2005. * doubting Thomas de ZengotitaMediated How the Media Shapes Our World and the Way We Live in It. New York Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005. * David Edwards and David CromwellGuardians of baron The Myth of the Liberal Media. London Pluto Press, 2006. * Robert Erikson and Kent TedinAmerican Public flavour Its Origins, Content, and Impact. Updated 7th ed. New York Pearson/Longman, 2007. * Dan GilmoreWe the Media Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People.Sebastopol, CA OReilly, 2006. * tom turkey GoldsteinJournalism and trueness Strange Bedfe llows. Chicago Northwestern University Press, 2007. * Doris A. GraberMedia Power in Politics. 5th ed. Washington, DC CQ Press, 2007. * Neil hydrogenAmerican Carnival Journalism under Siege in an Age of New Media. Berkeley, CA University of California Press, 2007. * Henry JenkinsConvergence shade Where Old and New Media Collide. New York NYU Press, 2006. * Steven JohnsonEverything Bad Is near for You How Popular Culture Is Making Us Smarter. New York Riverhead Trade, 2005. Lawrence Lessig warrant Culture How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and underwrite Creativity. New York Penguin, 2004. * Charles M. Madigan, ed. 30 The Collapse of the American Newspaper. Chicago Ivan R. Dee, 2007. * David W. MooreThe Opinion Makers An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls. New York Beacon Press, 2008. * Patrick R. ParsonsBlue Skies A History of line Television. Philadelphia Temple University Press, 2008. * Neil PostmanAmusing Ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. 20th anniversary ed.New York Penguin Books, 2005. * Metta SpencerTwo Aspirins and a comedy How Television Can Enhance Health and Society. Boulder, CO Paradigm Publishers, 2006. Periodicals * Dennis AuBuchon Free Speech and the Fairness Doctrine,American Chronicle, March 19, 2009. * Greg Beato The Spin We Love to scorn Do We Really Want News Without a Point of posture? Reason, December 2008. * Jeffrey Chester Time for a Digital Fairness Doctrine,AlterNet, October 19, 2004. * Edward W. Gillespie Media Realism How the GOP Should trade Increasingly Biased Journalists,National Review, April 6, 2009. Nicole Hemmer Liberals, Too, Should Reject the Fairness Doctrine,Christian perception Monitor, November 25, 2008. * R. Court Kirkwood What Did or Didnt Happen at Duke,New American, September 18, 2006. * Richard Perez-Pena Online guard dog Sniffs for Media Bias,New York Times, October 15, 2008. * Eugene Robinson (White) Women We Love,Washington Post, June 10, 2005. * Joseph Somsel Megaphone Envy and the Fairness Doctrine,American Thinker, March 19, 2009. * tour Thierer The Media Cornucopia,City Journal, Spring 2007. * Evan Thomas The Myth of Objectivity,Newsweek, March 10, 2008.