Does crime-happy local TV news perpetuate racism? One professor argues yes–and suggests some drastic measures to fix it.
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The authors of the FCC’s public-interest standards didn’t have in mind footage of running gun battles on LA’s freeways. They were thinking along the lines of PBS’s ”NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” What they got, instead, was ”Cops,” narrated by better-looking people.
Photo caption: On May 11 Angel Galvan led Los Angeles-area police on a 40-minute car chase that ended with him being shot to death – on live television. (Boston Globe)
[……………]
The authors of the FCC’s public-interest standards didn’t have in mind footage of running gun battles on LA’s freeways. They were thinking along the lines of PBS’s ”NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” What they got, instead, was ”Cops,” narrated by better-looking people.Photo caption: On May 11 Angel Galvan led Los Angeles-area police on a 40-minute car chase that ended with him being shot to death – on live television. (Boston Globe)
From PRWatch: “So counterproductive is local broadcast news,” UCLA law professor Jerry Kang argued in the Harvard Law Review, “that it is time the FCC stopped using the number of hours a station devotes to local news as evidence of the station’s contribution to the ‘public interest’, which has traditionally been a requirement for a broadcast license.”
More below with, of course, a poll!
PRWatch further states:
Kang cites psychological research that racist assumptions linking people of color with violence and crime are weakened, after “footage of a respected black figure like Bill Cosby or Martin Luther King, Jr.” is viewed. Local TV news reinforces racist stereotypes, Kang argues, pointing to a 13-month study of Los Angeles stations that found crime stories led broadcasts “51 percent of the time and took up 25 percent of total newscast minutes.”
For a fuller discourse on Kang’s controversial proposals, see the Boston Globe‘s “Crime scenes.”
I gave up watching local news years ago because it is one bloody story after another: murders, robberies, missing children, construction site accidents, fires, tearful, grief-stricken relatives, etc. They never seem to get around to what’s going on down at city hall or the state legislature. The old saying: “If it bleeds, it leads.” I’m not one bit surprised that they’ve taken to showing actual death in the streets because their sky-copter was on the scene following the latest sensationalist blather.
Love the line: “Cops” narrated by better-looking people. But, that depends on your definiton of “better-looking people.” I’m repulsed by the plastic Barbie’s and Ken’s on local networks. At least, by the time these folks work their way up to the networks they’ve aged a bit and look somewhat more human. The exception is Judy Woodruff. She is a shallow pool who got no depth as time passed; just as fake as when she was 22. Lou Dobbs, on the other hand, has learned how to fake gravitas. When he did local in Atlanta, he was the king of no-depth.
is that they tend to focus only on crimes that are committed by black people that affect white people.
Black on black crime is largely ignored. This gives the false impression that the black community doesn’t care about crime, and that blacks prey on whites.
They also rarely focus on issues of absentee lansdlordism, poor schools, predatory loans, lack of sufficient police patrols, lack of banks, foreclosures, lack of hotels, lack of everything in the inner city.
And the Democratic Party is not paying enough attention either.
I thought Bowling For Columbine illustrated this point very well with the footage filmed in Watts. The “news” in LA has been really violent and sensationalist for years, with an obvious bias.
Rant warning:
The term “TV news” is a misnomer. It’s really infotainment. The Brits more accurately describe their “anchors” as “news presenters.” Precious few of the so-called reporters on the tube have done any real reporting, or digging for information in order to present complex facets of a story.
So, to your quiz, I answered that I never watch local news. In large part because I don’t watch TV at all. Books are much more interesting. So is blogging.
“news presenters”
— I like that title much more too, M.
Often, at 11PM, i turn to the local PBS station because it usually airs BBC World News, which is so fascinating because it really covers world news.
A long time ago, I worked for KING Broadcasting in Seattle, which had a superlative news and public affairs team. In-depth stories were the norm. At 6:30PM every night, they did a half-hour story on ONE topic — muckraking, deep coverage of important, meaningful subjects. Commentaries by real experts were another norm. I participated in a special investigative environmental project…. also a norm there.
But, over the years, that station has gone the way of all local news, and it’s very sad to see. The same anchor does the news, and I can’t see how she can bear it since she’s an educated woman interested in foreign affairs, etc.
The networks flipped over sometime in the mid-70s. Until then, the news departments had been able to operate as cost centers. Once they became profit centers, they became entertainment. And thus the decline of research, reporting, various bureaus.
It’s so sad. Look at what E&P just reported: Times and Globe cutting almost 200 people. We must have one of the most poorly informed electorates anywhere.
I get cranky about electronic news types. I’ve more than once heard my work read on the air as news, with no attribution. Rip & read, indeed.
I get cranky about electronic news types. I’ve more than once heard my work read on the air as news, with no attribution. Rip & read, indeed.
Oh, do tell! I’d be very interested.
I own three tv’s, one in my children’s room, one in the kitchen and one in our bedroom. All of them strictly for movie viewing, we do not have any form of Television coming into our home. I refuse to pay for television that is a complete waste of time. If I could select what I wanted from the cable company, I would gladly pay for that privilege. I figure I have about 3 more yrs before I will have a child old enough to want TV. I fully intend to take advantage of the respite.