Coverage without context: simply irresponsible

An article about a man, jailed for illegal drug use would be remiss in failing to acknowledge that he had an incurable physical ailment for which no legal medication existed. It’s because the news paints a picture for the public, and this one would be incomplete without mention of the offender’s path to his predicament. It seems quite clear in the aforementioned case that a news article or story could project a less than accurate image of subjects by omitting the context in which things occur or the history leading up to an occurrence. Though possibly an afterthought, journalists should still recognize that reporting without providing context or correlative information for the news also perpetuates stereotypes.

In the days following CNN’s coverage of Black-Americans, black news outlets and blogs have praised the coverage for highlighting the daily struggle presented by race and class bias in the U.S.; some have expressed displeasure with program’s failure to address gender inequities, the present face of racism in the U.S. and other issues that plague the Black community; and some recognize how greate inequity in media coverage really is that a program of this nature is even necessary or popular. This brought to mind reports I have seen recently about the number of blacks that succeed in law school in comparison to white counterparts and the bar-passage rates for blacks.

While these stories and blogs highlight statistics, they consistently fail to acknowledge ever-present factors that give context to those numbers. Since reports, articles and news coverage rarely provide background to the number of Black-Americans that go to college, law school, graduate school or pursue a PhD, readers often subscribe to a view of these black subjects that perpetuates the stereotype that blacks are less-qualified, less-intelligent, less-driven, less-responsible, less-accountable and less than. These stories do not address the social construct that race was built on or the limits race can present.

So, while the news media does not and should not bear the burden of countering existing stereotypes that present themselves in the news, we should always provide context for any subject deemed newsworthy.