"We have breaking news that the men involved in a racially motivated assault have turned themselves in to the Grand Rapids police. Family of the young African American couple that were assaulted in late September are relieved that the perpetrators have been brought to justice. We're reporting live outside police head quarters, now back to our studio." This is a paraphrased version of what the local TV news reported on October 10, that after weeks of investigation, several suspects in an assault case were in custody.
If you live in the Grand Rapids area it has been nearly impossible to avoid knowing about the story of a young African American couple that was assault by Caucasian men who hurled racial slurs at them. The print and broadcast news has been reporting on this case on a near daily basis. The face of the Black man who was beaten in front of his children was shown over and over again, complete with swelling and bandages. So why all the coverage?
It is possible that the local news, particularly the TV news, felt like all the coverage would assist in the apprehension of the perpetrators. Possibly, but the same amount of coverage does not occur with other local crimes, even those involving murder. Perhaps the local Black community has been pressuring the news people to make this and other forms of racism news worthy. That is true to a degree. Many of the local news outlets have been participating in the Summits on Racism, but have been extremely reluctant to take ownership of their own role in perpetuating stereotypes.
I think it is safe to say that at some level the amount of coverage to this one racially motivated assault case is due, in part, to local media's desire to be seen as concerned about racism and racial diversity. Many have sent their staff to get training at the Institutes for the Healing of racism, workshops designed to get people to look at their perceptions and behavior about race. Great. I am all in favor of people getting any kind of sensitivity training, but this has little to do with giving a damn about racism.
On September 21, I was at Aquinas College participating in a Teach-in on US foreign policy. During one of the morning sessions WZZM 13 showed up to cover our event, or so I thought. I was asked by one of their reporters if I would talk with them on camera. Sure I thought, these kinds of activities need coverage. When I sat down just outside the hall where we were meeting I was finally informed as to the real reason for their presence. "We would like to get your response to the racially motivated assault in Grand Rapids yesterday." What? Why have you come to our Teach-in to talk to me about this? "We want to know what people in the community think." I couldn't believe it. They were like vultures, circling until they found something to consume. Trying to think quick on my feet, I decided to play along and see if I couldn't get them to think beyond a sound-bite.
The channel 13 reporter wanted to know what I thought about race relations in this community and if I was shocked by this racially motivated assault. I said I was disgusted by the assault, but not shocked. Grand Rapids, in my opinion, is not only extremely racially divided, but a city that is mired in institutional racism. I said that while I thought it was important for the news people to report on these kinds of acts of hate, it was more important for them to report on institutional racism. A puzzled look came over the face of the reporter. "What do you mean by institutional racism?"
Glad you asked. Why is it that the majority of the people who work in the agricultural sector in West Michigan as laborers are Latinos? Are Latinos somehow more genetically adept at picking apples? Not to my knowledge, although Charles Murray and friends might be trying to prove it. Migrant workers are some of the worst paid workers in the state, live in substandard housing and are exposed to toxic pesticides. Why is that not a story that merits regular coverage? And what about red lining, the practice of discriminating against minorities who want to buy a house in a "White" district? The puzzled looks continued.
As someone who monitors the local news for a living it has become clear to me that covering an assault case for weeks as opposed to investigating institutional racism is the result of how "news" gets produced. It is easy to do a story on a local assault, racially motivated or not. You keep track of police reports (I once heard a Lansing TV station news director say she had 3 police scanners in her office), you talk to victims, witnesses and law enforcement personnel. If it is a disturbing case you look for community feedback or seek out "experts." If someone is brought to justice that can give viewers/readers a sense of security or ease fears about police ineptitude. The problem does stem so much from how individual stories are reported on, it's how long-term reporting impacts public perception.
Down at the GRIID news cave we look at racial representation in local TV news. We document the racial make-up of all persons interviewed in stories, their status, as well as how crime suspects are portrayed. What we have found consistently over the past 5 years is that the racial representation of people in news stories along racial lines is not even consistent with census figures. White people are always represented higher than census numbers (around 90%), while Blacks, latinos, Asian, Arab and Native populations are below census data, except in the case of crime suspects. All of a sudden when crime suspects faces appear on the screen the percentage of Black faces is near 40% and Latinos 35%, while Whites drop to 25%. So, while minority voices are disproportionately missing from news coverage in general, they are favorites in crime coverage. We like to call this the news media's own brand of Racial Profiling. In fact that is what we call our reports on race representation in the news - Racial Profiling.
This type of profiling by the news media is not just limited to crime suspects, but all story areas. If the local news is doing a story on the economy, public health, education or the environment viewers are almost guaranteed to hear a White opinion. What has happened is that minority voices have been relegated to race-specific stories - cultural events, diversity stories or stories on racism. The problem with this is that viewers will end up thinking that minorities only have opinions about issues involving race, thus re-enforcing the notion that that is all that minorities care about. It also has what media researchers call a cumulative effects on audiences perception. Simply put, if you are only exposed to certain types of images over a period of time, you begin to think that is the norm. Only Whitey has an opinion about the state of the economy.
This applies equally in entertainment media. We did a 50-film study that looked at race representation called Tell Me Who I Am. In this study we found similar conclusions to our news studies - limited minority representation, disproportionate crime/negative portrayals. You can check out the report at http://www.griid.org/griidreports.shtml. Enough of the heavy stuff.
Just so you know we can have fun with this stuff, we'd like to invite you all to the 3rd Annual Newzees Awards show, where we give out awards for the best of the worst in local TV news. It's December 1 at 7pm in the UICA theatre. For tickets contacts us at 459-4788x122 or e-mail jsmith@grcmc.org. Don't miss your chance to see WOOD TV 8 reporter Brett Thomas use Lego figurines to explain unemployment in West Michigan.
