This isn’t meant to cast aspersions on the folks at The State covering the fire that killed seven people. But: I think it’s important to talk about race and class and how it relates to coverage. The dead were all young college students, and at least six were white (the seventh was not pictured).
A reasonable person can ask if the newspaper would open up its entire front page — two days in a row — for seven middle-aged black men who died in a boarding house fire in a rough neighborhood. Or seven Mexican immigrants who died in a van crash on a rural highway.
Again, I’m not trying to declare war on The State. Most newspapers would probably play it the same way — parents of privileged college kids are a key target demographic And senior editors are often parents of privielged college kids. But it’s nonsense to discuss this week’s coverage without talking about race and class
A.
The power to decide what is important is abused more often by what they leave out than what they put in the paper.
The power to decide what is important is abused more often by what they leave out than what they put in the paper.
Columbia *is* the University. The students are the city’s children. IMHO, the comparisons are apples to oranges.
Hi Athenae, I’ve said it before and will repeat that I see the problem with bloggers is that not all bloggers are journalists (and how to credential those that are).
OTOH, “real” Tee Vee newsrooms aren’t always the paragons of reporting either. The local channel here has taken to the habit of at least every other day reporting a story and adding along the line of:
Here at news we go the extra mile for in-depth reporting. So we phoned to discover the facts.
The next line is usually, “but our call was not returned.”
OOOH – we used a telephone. Investigative reporting, huh?
I have suffered in silence thru the TV coverage of that fire, mostly at CNN. No question, it was a bad happening, worthy of being reported on the news. But, one would have thought these were members of Congress who were in that house by the amount of coverage it got. Maybe it was just a slow news day, but I can’t believe that this was more important to the nation than the fact that the man nominated to be our new top officer of the law can’t say that the President is limited by the Constitution, or that waterboarding is a form of torture and must be illegal, unconstitutional, and a war crime. Now that story deserves the type of coverage that fire got.
I was unfortunately exposed to some local tv news here in town (I live in a medium-sized city in southern Ontario), and it wasatrocious. We had a water main break here overnight, a big one, meaning that a swimming-pool-sized section of one of our major downtown streets fell in overnight. Twenty blocks of downtown were without power (they cut the grid so that people going to repair the problem wouldn’t be electrocuted by electrified floodwater)…and not only did the talking head on the tv feel compelled to joke about it, but the story they spent the most time on during the broadcast was…
…interesting Hallowe’en decorations on people’s houses, followed closely by the recent tax cut announcements by the Harper government, which were very blatantly framed as “tax relief.” A mathematical co-worker of mine did the numbers, and he said that the average person would save $13/month from this cut, but corporations would save a ton. Figures as much, with a Bush-clone like Harper in power. (I don’twant any goddam tax cuts, you ass! I want social services, like so that the streets in my city aren’t falling in!)
The people whose blogs I read are about 15000% more informed and intelligent than the people doing the local media around here. (The online version of the local newspaper didn’t even have a picture up of the huge hole in the street…but a local blogger did.)
If that’s the kind of “journalism” blogs are ruining, I say “buh-bye!” to it.
but but but th were white college students. that is SOOO tragic!
Wait the mainstream media showers more attention on stories related to victimized rich white kids than those about victimized minorities? I thought minorities were the ones responsible for victimized rich white kids. Certainly minorities are the oppressors.
Love,
Nancy Grace and Everyone Else Affiliated with CNN Headline News