Portrayal of Minorities in the News

Throughout the seven days, I definitely noticed a trend in the way that the different categories were portrayed. Since it is coming close to election time, I saw that there was a lot of political coverage in the white community. Men made up most of the numbers I reported. 90% of the final number I found was of positive things regarding the white community; be it an expert coming to speak at a school, or someone being praised for their work in the community, everything was pretty normal. More-so in the "A" Section was the news regarding politics. On the metro page was where I saw more of the negative stories like the white man accused of viewing child pornography, and the mother who killed her 3 children, or the battered woman who was raped. A lot of the themes in the metro pages was crime related; not all of the time, but most. Overall, the white men and women had very few stories of anything negative, and when it was, it was not front page news or talked about in depth.

This was a different case when I looked at black men and women. Positive stories were very few and far between (mostly for the men). Most of the stories I found relating to black men and women dealt with robbery or murders. There was a little bit of politics dealing with Kendrick Meek, but only a couple of instances. The one positive story that I found regarding a black woman was about MiKyle Crockett, who was just named miss jacksonville U.S.A teen 2011. For the most part, white and black women are represented the same way. There was not much of a difference in the stories. I feel like the fact that they are women makes it easy for the media to portray them in the same way regardless of race.

* most white men in the media are portrayed as leaders, doing something to help the community. this is often the picture we have in our head when thinking of white men in the news. Of course, there will be cases of negative coverage, but far more positive than anything else.

example: white man in the media

*women in the media are either the perpetrator of a crime, or the victim, regardless of race. Regardless of the race, women are given the same treatment no matter the nature of the story.

   

* black men in the media, more often then not, are seen in a very negative way. this is a common denominator in most of the newspapers out there.

example: black man in the news