So I've been thinking, and it seems that a lot of the ignorance African-Americans get is due to how the media portrays them. The media gobble up stories of black on black crime, over-report them Slanted News Coverage Of Blacks Perpetuates Stereotypes | MadameNoire while stories about, say, victims of police brutality who are women of colour fall by the wayside. There are two things concerning this I want to put to bed : "Black people are bad because black on black crime" Not only is black on black crime at it's lowest point right nowhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/15/the-trayvon-martin-killing-and-the-myth-of-black-on-black-crime.html The Myth of the Black-on-Black Crime Epidemic | Demos, crime is related to two things, race and neighbourhood. Since people of the same race tend to live together, they are more likely to commit crimes against each other. However, black people do not kill a disproportionate amount of other black people. In fact, white on white crime is on the rise, but no one wants to talk about that because it doesn't fit the "black people are violent criminals" media narrative http://www.blackyouthproject.com/20...t_goes_against_the_false_media_narrative.html. So, black on black crime is BS "Well if we respected ourselves" It doesn't matter if we respect ourselves, it all comes down to the colour of our skin. The media always tries to make ridiculous justifications for the murderer's actions or dehumanizes the victim. "He's been in trouble with the police" "He was suspended from school" "He smoked weed" Some of these kids were honor roll students and they were still murdered because they were black. I feel thst once the media stops perpetuating this idea that black people are animals snd violent criminals, people will stop being so scared of us and that will be a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. What do you think?
"By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community." - Oscar Wilde I trust journalists less than I trust politicians, and they are considerably less likely to develop a conscience. They make money off of violence and divisiveness, so they have no vested interest in preventing it. Yellow journalism is the only kind of journalism remaining to us. Watching most broadcast news actually makes you less informed. Asking them to help stop racially motivated violence is like asking them to cook the goose that lays the golden eggs. They ain't going to do it. The problem is not that they don't know better. The problem is that they are actually evil.
^Or maybe it's the consumers that demand that type of content who are evil. They're only giving the people what they want..
The media, however, creates demand. When it comes to politics and social issues, the media sets the agenda. This means that they significantly influence the way that the general public views certain issues and whether most citizens consider them at all based on the information that they share. For instance, politicians are constantly releasing budgets and proposals, but most of these documents are extremely long and dense. Thus, reporters are never able to discuss entire budgets or proposals. Regardless of whether they are bent on manipulating the public or not, they are forced to choose which topic within the proposal they want to share to the public. Their decisions influence how the nation views that specific proposal from that point forward. Reporters are not entertainers. They are educators. Clearly, they are going to seek to address the subjects that they believe will interest the people, but they do not work to "tell the people what they want to hear". If the people already new everything they needed or wanted to know about the subject, then they wouldn't tune in. Reporters don't cater to the views of the public; they create the view.
That is not even my completely sentence... Anyway, the underlining point is that lack of attention being directed at certain topics within the media is one thing, but the inaccurate or incomplete portrayal of the topics that are addressed has much more harmful effects.
The point is, at the very least, it's a two way street. The media influences us, but we also influence the media.
