Quick: What do the following two recent news stories have in common? 1. Cincinnati race riots. 2. Pool of minority journalists shrinks. Answer: You might not have the first if the second weren't a problem. At the least, you might have heard more about the blatant police brutality that provoked the Cincinnati outrage, or the Los Angeles riot in 1992, or even Watts back in August 1965. Those details might actually be news fit to print if newsrooms weren't so damned white.
It is ... beyond a stretch to say that more minority journalists would have prevented the Cincinnati race riots. However, it's not much of a stretch to say that if you had more minority journalists, you might get, for example, stories in newspapers or magazines outside Cincinnati discussing the issue. I'd actually heard about Cincinnati's problems a while ago ... from the Chicago Reporter, which makes a point of concerning itself with issues of interest to minorities. Not exactly a national news source, eh?
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!