...well, maybe not "new," as in "I've-now-merged-with-AOL," but new as in, I want to change the direction of this blog. My year hiatus, albeit unintentionally, taught me that I'm less interested in what I think and more interested in what the world is saying about race and media. And so, with that, I pick this up again, but now I invite a conversation. Please post, get mad at me, "Amen" me, send me material you see around you. A blog - hell, any media - gets its value from the ripple effect is brings.
Living in Chicago (ok, ok, Evanston) for what will be a year next month, I've seen more than enough "Man, I should blog about that" moments, but none has piqued my interest quite as much as this city's recent wave of "flash mobs." (For more on this, search "flash mobs" on ChicagoTribune.com, or click here.) Basically, a group of young'ns launched a series of robberies in the city's downtown area, physically assaulting the victims and taking their belongings. The mayor--Mayer RAHM--spoke on the topic; police vowed to get to the bottom of the issue, even assign more cops to the streets near Michigan Avenue shopping Mecca; and several arrests were eventually made.
The coverage had dwindled quite a bit when I came across this from Chicago Reader reporter Michael Miner. "When Race Isn't Mentioned" focuses on the coverage - or lack thereof - of the racial identities of the assailants in these "mob attacks." Miner reviews three viewpoints as to why this is so, also summing up the thoughts of various Tribune reporters. According to Miner, the lack of race could be the product of one of these:
1. "The papers don't want any responsibility for the vile commentary sure to erupt from a noxious element of the readership. Better to be accused by those readers of gutless PC liberalism than be accused by more high-minded citizens of enabling the rabble-rousers." - I take this to mean that "the papers" wanted to absolve themselves of any responsibility for racist/bigoted comments.
2. "The Robert Frost school of news management," as Miner dubs it. I take this to mean, based on his subsequent definition, that the press was cagy in its lack of coverage. "If we don't write about race, we can write about the people who DO." Essentially, the media ignored race to ensure the editorial meetings were fruitful.
3. "The press was simply a little ahead of the curve." It is here that Miner is most optimistic. People, he posits, don't look at race as much as they used to. Race doesn't matter like it once did. From this perspective, "the initial race-free coverage of the flash mob outbreak can almost look like progress."
I think there may have been little coverage of race for all these reasons simultaneously. The last thing journalism needs is more grief about what it covers, what it doesn't cover, what it means and what effect it has. Better safe than sorry, as the saying goes. As mom always says, "You never regret saying nothing."
If media doesn't need a spanking over its coverage, what it does need, is coverage in the first place. And a spate of theft across the city is prime coverage, ripe for the reporting. And why not squeeze out every last bit of juice from the story by leaving blanks to be filled by others? (Which can then be fodder for columnists...)
To the third point - that race is less important than it once was - I say this is a half-truth. Sure, it may be more important that someone roughed-up Billy Corgan's brother than what the suspect fills out on the census form, but the mere fact that Miner's column, and those of all the Tribune reporters he reviews, land in the papers is evidence that race - out in the open or hushed out of print - is still an issue in our society. Whether this is good or bad is certainly a matter of debate, as are the reasons why race was largely left out of this news coverage. (Some may argue, of course, that race WAS prevalent in the mob reporting, and I'd love to hear from those people.)
Which reason of Miner's rings most true to you? Which is the most preferable, in terms of societal progress? Are there others to be considered?
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It seems wrong that reputable reporting should push a social agenda. The job of a reporter is to take realities/facts of an event and boil them down to words, including whatever background might be needed to frame the story. If the crimes were committed by grandmas who went to the same knitting class, that is a fact and should be reported in order to understand the event. If the crimes were committed by all black men, every one, then say that it was a black man crime. If it was committed by a predominately black gang or group of friends, say that. Do not rob me, the one who needs to hear a full story, of a very useful piece of background information just so that your newspaper can feel good for not owning slaves in this generation, or whatever social guilt you're avoiding. If race gangs exist, let's admit it and figure out real social change to combat it, if that's what society really wants; but let society choose what to do by being over-informed rather than uninformed. Hopefully on that note, a reporter could glean some information as to why crimes are committed so that we don't have to live a life in general fear of "those criminals" who are really just normal people generally that have been pushed down a socially unacceptable path.
ReplyDeleteSo when, do you think, race becomes relevant? Is the race of a perpetrator always worthy of inclusion? What if the reporter can't figure out exactly what race someone is?
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that facts relevant to a story should be reported, I think race deserves some special "navigation" because it is so loaded. What that consideration/navigation looks like, I'm not sure.