Tagged: journalists

“‘Implicit bias impacts the way black communities are treated across practically all sectors of life in America, from courtrooms to doctors’ offices,’ Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorOfChange.org, tells The Root. ‘The media is no different, whether it be the use of pejorative terms like “thug” and “animal” to describe protesters in Ferguson and Baltimore, or the widespread overreporting of crime stories involving black suspects in New York City.’ Media bias not only negatively impacts black America’s relationship with law enforcement and the judicial system but also extends to how African Americans are perceived in society at large. Couple the findings of Harvard’s Project Implicit, which determined that approximately 88 percent of white Americans have implicit racial bias against black people, with a racially homogeneous media industry, and the toxic environment that leads to media injustice is thrown into stark relief. ‘Television newsrooms are nearly 80 percent white, according to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, while radio newsrooms are 92 percent white,’ writes Sally Lehrman, former chairwoman of the diversity committee at the Society of Professional Journalists. According to the American Society of News Editors, ‘The percentage of minority journalists has remained between 12 and 14 percent for more than a decade.’ This lays the groundwork for an intrinsically racist media structure…”

Source: Kirsten West Savali. “Throw Away the Script: How Media Bias Is Killing Black America.” The Root. June 2, 2015. http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/06/how_media_bias_is_killing_black_america.html.