Local News- OKC region

Following my completion of the local news assignment, the majority of the information I found did not surprise me. First off, I was not surprised that out of all seven days that I covered, only once was there a minority lead reporter covering a story. Being in Oklahoma, which is not a very diverse state in comparison to that of California where there may be a greater diversity in representation of minorities in the newsroom, it was expected to see white news anchors doing the nightly news. Secondly, the people committing the crimes, when identified, were a mixture of male and female, as well as white, black and Hispanic. Two of the crimes were husband and wife combination and both were white. Probably the biggest case that I covered was the story about the African-American female who had robbed four banks in the Oklahoma City area. The FBI was involved in this case. I did not really notice any particular bias towards the criminals from the news anchors. No matter the sex or color of the offender, they reported them based on the facts and didn’t make the minorities crimes seem worse than those of whites. Although the Oklahoma television stations do not show much diversity at the news desk, they do not tend to stereotype or call out any sex or race for being criminally inclined. This project for me was an eye opener. I am from Dallas, and even though it is a southern state, it is clearly more diverse in the newsroom, than Oklahoma City. On any given day and time you can find white, black and Hispanic anchors doing newscasts. The same goes for St. Louis, where my grand mother lives. On channel 5 in St. Louis, Art Holliday, who is an African American male, is one of the lead anchors in the morning and pretty much all of my family in St. Louis watch channel 5 because of Art. Although the coverage in Oklahoma City is non- bias when it comes to coverage, I think they could do a better job of diversifying their newsrooms.

Who Decides What News Is?

After watching the videos, it is clear that there is a problem with the media system. It is clear that the media agenda is not set by crucial issues that effect the public, but by the owners of the radio and television stations, which in many cases they are set to cover what they want. With this issue of not covering important stories for the public, which many of them have to do with minority issues, they are doing the public a huge disservice. I think that it is extremely important for minorities to have media outlets that they can go to for there own cause. I think that these media outlets speak directly to them. Instead of listening to other people's agendas, they can be informed on the issues, which directly affect their communities. After watching the videos I thought that WVON radio station in Chicago is an amazing thing. An African American radio station that started in the middle of the civil rights movement and is still serving the community in Chicago today. That is a special thing, and more of this should be occurring around the country. This success story proves that not everyone has the same interests. I think that the best way to continue to spread the word to minority communities is to expand the range of these racially and ethnically motivated media outlets. Although I believe that this should serve as a building ground to evolve the mainstream media into a source of media that covers everyone's interests. The war in Iraq is an interesting story about covering interests. At the time we were in a very defense mind set following the September 11 terrorist attacks. It was the first time since Pearl Harbor that we as a country had been attacked at home in that deadly of a fashion. When we went into war, the media did a fine job of ignoring the opposing opinion to the war, and in turn did there best to justify the war in a sense to not look un-patriotic. Whether you believe that the war was the right or wrong choice, this is how the issue was covered initially. Today, the media has very different opinion. Although the times in Iraq have gotten far better than when we first invaded, it is still controversial. In the upside, I have friends who are over in Iraq right now. They are doing things like building schools and setting up business and city. They do not want to be there any more than any of us would, but they are soldiers and are doing the job they signed up for and they will be the first to say that. I think that it is a very important part of life to have an opinion because opinions are what have made our country the great democracy that it is, but in the end the support for those who are over there defending our country so that we can live our day to day life’s and go to school and get drunk on Friday and Saturday nights is extremely important. The next time you see and man or women in uniform walking on campus or in the airport, go up and thank them for what they do. I know I do every time I run in to a man or women in the armed services. Anyways, off of my soapbox about supporting the troops. The media has covered numerous protests, from gay marriage, to the war in Iraq. I think it is important that they do not ignore many of these marches as they have done in the past, although I believe there is a limit because if you show too much of a protest, in a media world attempting to be fair and balanced, you tend to take sides on touchy issues in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement benefited the most from media coverage. For many Americans they lived in a bubble of black and white and ignored what was really going on in society. The media opened the doors to ignored images and social spheres that would have never been opened if the coverage had been ignored. We are a better country today for the detailed coverage of the Civil Rights Movement. The media is a very important part of our society, if not the most important. If we do not have freedom of the press as Americans, we do not have democracies. God Bless America, and God Bless the first amendment and what it has done for this country!

Response #3

Blogger: Jamie Olmos Bofill http://jaimeplayitagainsam.blogspot.com


After reading you blog and the examples I just want to say i completely agree. As I stated in my blog, it is clear that stereotypes are present and that the creators of media are the people who continue to make these stereotypes present. I was also not surprised by the use of this media. Even before this assignment when i never really took time to notice these issues as stereotypes, it was so clear that all forms of media use gender and racial stereotypes. I think it is just amazing when you actually take time to notice all of the different uses.