In a news report Wednesday night, WZZM 13 announced an April rally by the Ku Klux Klan that will be held on the capitol steps in Lansing. The short 91-word report had little news value and essentially functioned as an advertisement for the Klan and a way of dismissing anti-Klan demonstrators by portraying them as militants that fought with police in 1994 and cost the city of Lansing $200,000 security costs to protect the Klan. The article did not mention the date of the rally, and while there is no need to give the Klan space to promote its event, it shows the overall failure of WZZM 13 to provide adequate reporting on the issue.

While WZZM 13 did not do a substantive story on the rally, the story could have been framed in a way that would have contributed to residents’ understanding of racism in the Michigan area. For example, WZZM could have made connections between the Klan rally and recent activity by other white supremacist groups, such as the National Alliance (1, 2) and the National Socialist Movement, both of which have distributed racist flyers in the Grand Rapids area in the past few years. Moreover, while protestors at the 1994 KKK rally were portrayed in a negative light, the WZZM 13 story could have mentioned that the KKK is almost always protested and frequently disrupted when it holds rallies in Michigan despite brutal attacks by police protecting the Klan. Additionally the WZZM 13 story could have mentioned that while groups such as the KKK and other white supremacist groups have a particularly visible form of racism, institutional racism affects far more people.