And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 21:40:08 EDT
Subject: De-Springerizing the News
T
* Our apologies for sending this out late (due to being on the road). RR & PG
-----------------------------------------
FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF JULY 9, 1999
COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez
DE-SPRINGERIZING THE NEWS
SEATTLE -- At the last Unity conference five years ago, thousands of
journalists of color met in Atlanta and debated the role of race and
ethnicity in relationship to all aspects of the news media. This time, we
came not content with asking questions about numbers, percentages or images.
We already know the answers; there are still very few people of color in the
profession, and the images of people of color are still negatively distorted
or nonexistent. This time, we pondered purpose and relevance.
We've already learned that if a person of color follows the same mainstream
formulas for covering news stories, the result will be sensationalist sound
bites -- with a little bit of color. And we already know that desegregating
the profession is not enough, just as expanding coverage on white criminality
is not the antidote to the criminalization of people of color by the media.
Virtually every news outlet seemingly has the same news formula -- violence,
transportation mishaps, natural disasters, weather and sports. If there's no
local violence or tragedy to report on, a national one will do. We've long
asked, How does society benefit from this? How are we enlightened, and what
do we learn from a steady diet of carnage? In advertising, we know the
result: more customers. In effect, we are all customers of news.
Being constantly force-fed this diet of violence shapes our consciousness. It
forces us to fear our neighbors, to be distant and distrustful. It teaches us
to racialize crime and to think of other problems in a similar vein. As a
result, our fears are attributable to someone dark, and so it becomes easy to
scapegoat and to build moated communities and minds. People of color are
often portrayed as victims and problems. Consequently, this is how they are
viewed by many in society.
As news consumers, we must insist that the news media profession change its
definition of news. In responding to demands for change, news executives have
traditionally held that they are in the business of providing information,
not propaganda. Yet, like objectivity, information is in the eye of the
beholder.
Currently, what defines news is the idea of conflict. However, the media
often provide a superficial treatment of conflict, omitting context and its
deepest roots. More often than not, resolutions are ignored.
The tragedy in Littleton, Colo., becomes a story about gun bans as opposed to
how society fails to give youth a sense of purpose. Black/Latino conflict is
portrayed as only racial animus without examining how poverty and lack of
opportunity are factors in discord. American Indians are reported as rioting
at a peaceful protest in Nebraska, without showing the deeper relationship to
racism, violence and how non-Indian "wet" towns and the alcohol industry
profit and contribute to the despair on reservations. On the international
front, Russians continue to be portrayed as obstacles to peace, and the
Chinese are the new spies and the new threat to world peace.
"We have to take control over what the dialogue is about and what is
covered," says Winona LaDuke, an Anishinabe Indian and author of "All Our
Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life" (South End Press, $17).
"Absent of historical context, media do a huge disservice because they don't
show relationships." Just sound bites.
The antithesis to this news formula is not fluff, nor artificially created
"good news." It is to report news that adds value and enriches our lives.
More than anything, it should replenish the human spirit and help rehumanize
society. It should demystify the culture of fear that suffocates
democratization in this country.
All this reminds us of when Jerry Springer was recently asked, if the fights
on his program were staged, in effect, wasn't his program a fraud? Perhaps
media executives should also be asked the same question. To produce the same
nightly/daily dose of violence, all that's required is the positioning of
cameras on the usual street corners -- or on a fast helicopter.
The challenge to news consumers is to become involved in improving news
coverage and to suggest alternatives to the current news formula. In doing
this, we should keep in mind that the news media should serve to bridge
communities and make us more trusting and more learned of other peoples and
cultures. It should connect us all to one humanity.
Anything less is status quo and the incomplete story of the world we live in.
Or as Kara Briggs, president of the Native American Journalists Association,
says in talking about our present era, "We have the greatest human stories
evolving. It's time to right them."
COPYRIGHT 1999 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
Gonzales & Rodriguez can be reached at PO BOX 7905, ALbq NM 87194-7905
505-242-7282 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE
http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
