The host of a popular late night talk show on WLIB, “Thinking it Through,” asked a provocative but interesting question during the early hours of a recent weekday morning.
It was: How come the major newspapers and radio stations in New York City had failed to cover reports of multiple deaths in Haiti, reportedly committed by United Nations peace-keeping troops and Haitian police?
After all, reasoned Dr. Carlos Russell, the show’s host, the story about “a massacre” of Haitians, allegedly carried out by the very UN forces, which should be protecting people’s lives, was important, very important.
While it’s true that the UN has denied the allegations that police officers in Haiti dismissed the reports as being unfounded and that the exact number of poor people killed in the slums of Port-au-Prince remains unclear a week after the story broke, the charges of a “massacre” by UN troops and law enforcement officers cried out for some coverage.
One explanation for the news blackout in New York was that the city’s papers and radio and television stations were too focused on the bombings in London and the 52 people killed by terrorists to notice that some light needed to be focused on a story about the deaths of women, children, and “criminals” in the troubled nation of Haiti.
Another, and perhaps more pointed and accurate answer, was that the world of Blacks takes a backseat to events in Europe or stories abut whites when it comes to the so-called mainstream media. Consider the amount of ink, paper, airtime and attention focused on the unfortunate and tragic disappearance of young white teenage tourist in Aruba who happened to be white, and the point should come home quite clearly.
A recent study of television network news in the United States underscored the absence of news about and involving Blacks. Of the 100 sound bites on foreign affairs, whites uttered 99 and one was by a Black person. Of the 100 sound bites on economic matters, whites offered opinions in 86 cases and Blacks on one occasion. When it came to stories on electoral politics in the United States, whites were heard 79 times and Blacks zero. The same study found that Blacks were four times more likely than whites to be in a mug shot of someone accused of a crime. Whites were less likely than Blacks to be named as accused in the local television news.
The obvious conclusion was that despite the gains made by Blacks in the past 40 to 60 years, the reality is that we are not shown to be making important contributions to the serious business in this country. It doesn’t mean we aren’t making the contribution. Instead, it’s not being reported. Sadly, we are readily linked to crime, sports and entertainment.
Where, then, do Blacks in America turn with confidence to get information?
They place their trust in the Black media, be it newspapers, radio stations and magazines. While most Blacks turn to local television news programs for information, they don’t consider the news to be trustworthy, according to the results of a study conducted by an African-American market research group in collaboration with Florida A&M University’s School of Business and Industry. Black-owned newspapers had a trust level of 80 percent while Black radio news wasn’t too far behind at 77 percent. Black magazines had the highest trust level at 87 percent.
Interestingly, whites are losing confidence in the largely white media. Several national public opinion polls in recent months indicate that Americans across the board have far less faith in the accuracy of reporting in major news organizations than they did a decade ago.
While we can’t second guess the freedom won by Blacks in the past 50 years, we shouldn’t be prepared to write the obituary of the Black press, which was and continues to be in the vanguard of the fight for the realization of the dream held by Dr. Martin Luther King.
Yes, it’s true that the number of Black-owned newspapers has declined in recent years. However, they continue to reach a mass audience. The National Newspaper Publishers Association, the organization whose membership is drawn from the 200 weekly Black newspapers across the country, remains a vital institution. More than 15 million people read Black newspapers and magazines, with an average age of 44 years; 54 percent female and 44 percent male; 60 percent have a college education and 90 percent a high school diploma.
We are talking about people with an ability to think, who have and continue to take control of their lives, have tremendous buying power, and have a point of view, which is not being ventilated in the mainstream media.
“That’s a real pity, a tragedy,” said Dr. Russell, whose five-hour nightly program keeps thousands of people awake during the early hours of the morning.
We couldn’t agree more.
