The Misrepresentation of the Black Community in the Press and Media
Written by Jocelyn Hockaday
This is my final essay for one of my courses, Journalism and Society. Using scholarly and outside-realiable sources, I explore how the Black community has been wrongly represented in the media and the press from the roots of media history to present day media.
The press and media have a long history of showing a lack of enthusiasm when it comes to the black community, let alone a black voice in our mediated world. The media have terribly failed in “reporting accurately and honestly the day by day news emanating from the black community” and “adequately and accurately '' portray black people and black perspectives (Hatcher, pg. 4). If it is from America falsly accusing members of the black community raping white women and reporting it in the newspapers in 1890s or America ignoring and attacking black journalists, such as Ida B. Wells, who tried to uncover the truth. The black community has been misrepresented in movies, television shows, music, social media, and in news sources. Although black representation had a chance to be amplified in 1827 through the creation of the Black Press, underlying systemic issues still surfaced in the world of the press and media, making progress difficult, such as the Black Lives Matter Movement. Today black voices have increased through social media platforms such as Black Twitter and an increased hire of black journalists and reporters. However, prejudice is still alive in our mediated world, it is just presented differently than it did more than one hundred years ago.
When considering The Press by Stephens and Mindich, this piece of work explores the idea of the press misrepresentation what American reflects: “if democracy requires a press that provides a true account of a nation’s doing, then it must be said that the American press has failed” (Stephens and Mindich, pg. 372). In short, Stephens and Mindich believe media and the press is like a mirror, “reflecting what happens to be in front of them” (Stephens and Mindich, pg. 374). For example, language expresses our thoughts and “writers merely say what they mean”, which can be widely problematic as this is why thinking can lead to misunderstandings. Another reason why the press fails at representing America’s values and morals, according to Stephens and Mindich, is due to bias. Mentioned in A Mediated World, work written by David T. Z. Mindich, he outlines the different forms of bias. These biases differentiate the difference between liars and an honest new source and journalist. Additionally, biased accounts can lead to violence, crimes, tragedies, and “their prevalence in a society” can easily be misunderstood and exaggerated. A possible solution to the spread of bias accounts and the mirror effect is to simply make the mirror larger. However, it is not that simple. This mirror that is assigned to journalism is “limited in size” and the press is subject to rarely widening its circle outside two of Hallin’s sphere’s: “Sphere of Consensus” and the “Sphere of Legitimate Controversy.
Regarding Stephen and Mindichs thesis of the American press and media misrepresenting its people, I agree. The history of the American press and media sources have given us more than enough evidence to back this claim. In addition to misrepresentation of American people, more specifically the media and new sources were subject to prejudge and inaccurate representation of the black community. For instance, the creation of the Black Press; it was done in the early 1800’s in order for black people to have a voice of which the original press lacked, which still received backlash and negative responses by its white counterparts. Another example of the media and news failure to represent the black community, is the creation of Black Twitter. Black twitter according to A Mediated World, is “Black Twitter is a group of activists who took to Twitter and other social media to express their concern about society's violence and injustice directed toward people of color” (Mindich, pg. 5). In other words, Black Twitter was created to talk about and represent not only the values, morals, and culture of black people, but also voice opinions on social and political issues of which the original social media platforms did not. Actually, this idea of culture disclusion is found to be a common factor in social media platforms. Many times as a black woman, I have to put “black women” after my search in order to find something that represents me or follow topics which represent me, rather than what is trending. As our mediated world came far from the New May Numbers Columbia racists ad in 1910’s (see image below) or people of color played by white actors (blackface) in movies The Birth of a Nation and The Jazz Singer, America still has a long way to go.
Historically speaking, there are more than enough examples of misrepresentation of the black community. However, it is not spoken enough about how modern news and media sources contribute to misrepresentation. Let’s take a look at Fox News, a highly biased, right-wing centered news source and Bill O'Reilly’s report on The Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM). O'Reilly had reported that the BLM Movement was “killing American’”s and then proceeded to provide statistics of crime rates of which were occurring within predominantly Black cities. This report is inaccurate as the BLM Movement was often peaceful and turned to violence by a selective few, a majority of whom were white men or women. Often reports such as these create a narrative that the black community is violent and cause harm to the American ideals, but rather it's the white Americans that threaten the country's ideals while the black community is trying to receive these ideals that they are deprived of; such as democracy, liberty, and justice. Or rather we look at Dove’s commercial in 2017. The ad is captioned: “Ready for a Dove shower? Sulfate Free with 100% gentle cleansers, our body wash gets top marks from dermatologists”, while the ad proceeds to show a black woman taking her shirt off which turns into a light-skin woman taking her shirt off which turns into a white woman as the final result. This ad is racially insensitive as the audience views it as Dove presents darker skin as a “mark” of which its soap can remove. Social platforms responded with anger and disappointment, which resulted in Dove apologizing and removing its commercial series from its marketing sequence (see image below). False representation in both of these examples can develop a negative response from the public, through social media such as it did for the Dove commercial or in our own communities, such as the protests during the report by O’Reilly. False representation through the press and media needs to be addressed as it will only add frustration to the people viewing and additionally, create distrust within the press and media community. Lastly, I think it's best to directly consider Richard E. Wolseley words from his book, The Black Press, U.S.A, mentioned in Richard G. Hatcher's book, Mass Media and The Black Community, about the media and press and how they represent the black community: “As Roi Ottley has explained, the white press and news services earned the suspicion of the black citizens in the first half of this century because they could not be trusted to tell the truth about blacks. These white agencies were accused of favoring white against blacks, i.e., tailoring the news to fit the publications' prejudices or at least those of their owners. Both northern and southern papers followed the practice of race identification of blacks only, and of ignoring entirely anything but unfavorable black news” (Hatcher, pg. 3)
As historic and current events were analyzed in the media and press, it is clear that it has a long history regarding the misrepresentation of the black community. Having media outlets that represent you generates a sense of comfortability, as the relationship between the creators and the audience/interactions create a sense of understanding. When I open an app and see something I relate to or see someone like me, the feeling I hold differs from how I felt when I viewed the Dove commercial in 2017. I want to feel like I belong and contribute to America's world of journalism, not set apart from it. The black community has undergone misrepresentation, exploitations, and appropriation in the media and the news for more than one hundred years, and it's time for our voices to be amplified instead of blurred. We are not “violent thugs” or “ghetto”, we are human like everyone else and we want the world to see that. This can only be done through news outlets of which are unbiased, contrary to the right-wing Fox News, as mentioned earlier. Having a new source you can trust to provide the facts, rather than the perspective of one side builds trust between the journalism community and its audience. After all, we report, create, and write for the people, so why not do it the right way.
Bibliography
“Dove Apologizes for Racially Insensitive AD.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 9 Oct. 2017, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dove-ad-racist-insensitive-apology-for-facebook-ad/.
FoxNewsChannel, director. YouTube, YouTube, 25 May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G096YbGRcY8. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.
Hatcher, Richard G. Mass Media and the Black Community, Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1973, pp. 3–4.
Jhoinxrist3, director. YouTube, YouTube, 9 Oct. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJssvw1LQbI&t=17s. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.
Limited, Alamy. “1910s USA Columbia Magazine Advert Stock Photo.” Alamy, https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-1910s-usa-columbia-magazine-advert-85334648.html.
Stephens, Mitchell, and David T. Z. Mindich, “The Press and the Politics of Representation,” in Overholser and Jamieson, The Press. Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 372-384
*Citation excludes textbook The Mediated World: A NEW APPROACH TO MASS COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE By David T.Z. Mindich
