Journalistic Racism - a product review

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• Item: Three black college students assassinated in Newark NJ by a gang of latinos, two of which were illegal aliens from Central and Soth America.
• Item: A Korean misfit murders 32 mostly white students and faculty at Virginia Tech and then commits suicide.
• Item: Within weeks a black NFL quarterback and a platinum selling rapper are charged with dog fighting.
• Item: Item: The principal for a new Muslim School in New York publicly approves of the wearing of shirts calling for 'intafada in New York'.

   The list could on indefinitely. It seems as though each new day brings with it yet another incident of crime with a racial component. Is it the media's focus, our perceptions or reality?

   The media is in the business of selling news and seeks to find the most receptive audience. In these days when illegal immigration is such a hot topic, any news with a racial or cultural component will  naturally sell more copy. But are they appealing to our interests - or their own?

  Imagine if the only news you received was by radio. And no mention of color or nationality was ever made in the coverage. Would you care as much about any of the stories above? I don't think so. Each crime is horrific in its own right without regard to any other consideration. So why then does race and nationality figure so prominently in each case? Certainly, part of the reason is that our news is from mostly visual sources. But that alone doesn't account for the emphasis put on race and nationality.

   Is there more crime committed by other races and nationalities? Statistics say that hispanics actually cause less crime than they represent in population. Black crime is almost always on blacks. Both facts are empirically true. Are we, as an audience more sensitive to crimes committed by races and nationalities other than our own? I think that goes without saying but I know it doesn't go far enough to justify the amount of coverage and emphasis crimes of that sort receive. There has to be more to it than that.

   Back when William Randolph Hearst was the King of All Media, his primary source of income was newpapers. It is long known fact of reportage, that if nothing is going on, people are not all that interested and therefore - do not buy newspapers. Remember 9/11? Remember how you were glued to your television set? With the possible exception of the first few 'shock & awe' days of the Iraqi war, have you been so absorbed? Hearst was the preimminent purveyor of news. He took his cue from P.T. Barnum - a contemporary. Heast knew instinctually, that there had to be something exciting going on or his newsprint wouldn't sell. His solution? He created the news. Literally.

   You may have heard of the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, or at least you may have heard the slogan coined by Hearst - 'REMEMBER THE MAINE!'. A blatant ripoff of 'Remember the Alamo!'. Both slogans refer to the same enemy - hispanics. There is little proof and more than enough doubt that the Maine incident was, in fact, an act of terrorism or war. It is  much more likely that the vessel's boiler blew, due to inattendance - as the crew was on shore tossing down Cuban rum at the time. But Hearst siezed on the incident and whipped his readers into a frenzy of nationalism. Daily, the Hearst papers would report perceived sleights and contrived antagonisms by Spain. In a few short months, we were at war with Spain. Hearst had never sold so many papers. And all the news he was selling was not only false, it preyed on that part of every human which looks askance at someone of another color.

   'But the media is controlled by liberals and they are opposed to race baiting!' you say? Yeah, on their topmost surface, that part of them which is readily visible, that is true. But I have never met another human wholly without some racial bias, and truth be known, liberals usually have more of that than their fair share. They are just more adept at hiding it. But the overarching factor at play here is the selling of the news. For without that, neither liberal OR conservative journalist is going to be able to feed his family or pay the mortgage. So it behoves both to focus on stories which pique that place inside us all that might be racist. Or prejudiced. Or biased.

   Nothing has changed since Hearst, except that the portrayal of stories need not include the actual words - WETBACK - NIGGER - NIP - WOP - KRAUT. Newspapers used to employ those and many more 'descriptive' terms like that. But it is no longer necessary. The camera does that job. The camera absolves the reporter from being responsible for the focus - or the racism. That focus is silently understood and accepted by both the reporter and the viewer. It is that unspoken focus which is selling the news today.

   Both sides use this tactic. The Right shows alarming images of Mexicans crossing the border with bales of marijuana, the Left shows heart rending images of babies torn from their mother's breast. Images of rich black dog fight devotees make much better frenzy fodder than a barn full of big-bellied good old boys in Cajun country. My point is that it IS the media which is perpetually trying to whip up the flames of incitement to SELL THEIR PRODUCT - the news. Never forget that. When you see an image on the screen, ask yourself this: How does employing that image further the agenda of whomever happens to be showing it? Ask yourself if you would be as attentive to whatever story accompanies that image if you were unable to see it. Ask yourself if the image is even needed, it is integral, is it pandering?

The answer to that last? Usually. Spread the word!

Selling the news pays well.Making the news pays better.Owning the news pays the best.

Comments

[Phoenix]

Too much effort to live in a castle. Think of the vacuuming.

I watched a video clip of a news anchorwoman have a fit because the lead story, which she had to do, was about Lindsay Lohan. Her two men cohorts teased her on air and told her to get on with it. She stood up after saying she'd told her producers Lohan was not news, and walked over to the shredder and shredded it. It was great.

I don't disagree with you much, but these days of all-news 24 hours a day......well, it's hard to fill up the time when nothing 'fiery' is happening to get people's attention. That's no excuse to fabricate events or glorify non-events, but it seems there are more than enough idiots out there to watch it.

[Oldcatman]

If I had no power to run my computer or TV---I'd have no news.......I wonder if that is such a bad idea?

[Carl]

Steel,

Speaking abt news and their treatment,

A Guinean Biologist, Dr. Mohammed Tahirou Barry claims to have treated 71 AIDS patients with a success ratio of 68 to 3.

His therapy is based on the administration of Sodium Hypochlorite to AIDS patients and has been patented in his country as well as in the African Union, and scientific briefs have been addressed to the OMS and ONUSIDA on his findings.

Yet none of this has appeared in the Western press. It is claimed that this reflects the fact that AIDS has become such a major business that the discovery of a cure to the disease would spell disaster to all those that are living from grants favoring research or palliative care of the diseased.

What do you make of this?

[Phoenix]

Carl,

I have no reason to doubt your 'news', but will say only that if it is true, the victims of AIDS will rise up and make this news heard.

As for covering up scientific advances, especially in pharmacology, I agree that it may very well happen for the reason you say. However, drug companies don't give a damn who loses a research grant, and they would be the first on it to make it their bailiwick in this country.

[Steel]

Carl ...

Please. Last year another Afican went in front of the U.N. and spoke about how she had found a cure for AIDS with some 'special herbs' from her village.

Even that 'august' body refuted her findings and laughed her out.

I realize that where you live, things like, Santeria and voodoo are much more widely accepted, but please.

After 25 million dead and nobody in Africa able to pay for what little medicine IS efficacious, don't you think such a cure would be widely known?

Have you ever heard of the concept of 'reproduceability'?

Witch doctors, quacks, charlatans and high priests of occult religions can CLAIM all they want.

If it cannot be reproduced in a laboratory with the same results then it is pure quackery.

Let me ask you a question, Carl.

If your child had AIDS would YOU rely on Dr. Mohammed Tahirou Barry's 'claims'?

Why do presuppose that America, corporations etc etc etc are out to do you harm, Carl?

They have been all that has stood in between you living or dying. Many times.

Were you complaining when you got that malaria shot? Or those antibiotics? Or that polio vaccine?

Nope, you were happy to take 'em.

Why then, do you mistrust their source so?

[Jim Mcfalls]

Money may cure aids

See Magic Johnson