Maynard Media Center on Structural Inequity

TV Station Takes Four-Year-Old Child’s Quote Out of Context

Author: 
Bob Butler
Wednesday, August 3, 2011

A Chicago television station is under fire for editing the video of an African-American youth to make it appear that the 4-year-old was advocating gun violence when he clearly stated during the interview that he wanted a gun because his ambition is to be a police officer.   

The CBS station, WBBM, is being blasted by civil rights leaders and news media professionals for taking the youth’s statements out of context, violating the basics of journalism ethics.

 

Criminal Justice Resources

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Racial disparities are documented in every aspect of the criminal justice system, from massive stop and frisk operations, to who is arrested, charged and convicted. While the powered and crack cocaine sentencing inequality was dramatic, racial disparities exist in sentencing across the board. In

 

Coverage Analysis

Why Missing People of Color Aren’t a Media Priority

Author: 
Nadra Kareem Nittle
Thursday, February 9, 2012

Media outlets have traditionally devoted a disproportionate amount of newsprint and airtime to investigating disappearances of middle-class whites, especially women, while often ignoring minority women and other demographics, such as men and the poor.

A 2005 study by Scripps Howard News Service found that although half of missing children are white, they were subjects of more than two-thirds of reports on the Associated Press national news wire during the last five years and for three-fourths of missing-children coverage on CNN.
 

 

How the Media Can Improve Coverage of Immigration

Author: 
Nadra Kareem Nittle
Wednesday, January 25, 2012

In recent years, the crackdown on unlawful immigration has led to increased reporting on local, state and federal immigration policies. But the media coverage often has done more harm than good by using biased language to characterize immigrants and ignoring the many challenges faced by immigrant women in particular.

 

Improving Media Coverage of Racial Profiling

Author: 
Nadra Kareem Nittle
Thursday, December 8, 2011

Even as incidents of racial profiling by law enforcement agencies continue to rise across the country, some activists say the media haven’t grasped how to provide comprehensive coverage of the story.

With elected officials and the public concerned about crime, authorities have been randomly stopping and searching people suspected of criminal involvement, even without evidence of illegal activity. Most often, victims of such random stops are people of color, usually Latinos and African-Americans. 

 

Improving Media Coverage of Police Brutality Cases

Author: 
Nadra Kareem Nittle
Thursday, October 6, 2011

Extensive media coverage of the fatal police beating of a homeless man in Fullerton, Calif. has renewed questions about whether the news media react differently when the victim is white and if news outlets routinely ignore non-lethal police brutality. 

Police accountability activists have closely monitored the international media attention resulting from the death of a white man, Kelly Thomas, 37, in July. 

 

Media Bungles Race and Sex in Coverage of Dominique Strauss-Kahn Rape Scandal

Author: 
Nadra Kareem Nittle
Tuesday, August 2, 2011

When news broke in mid-May that a hotel maid had accused International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault, race was largely left out of the equation. Initial reports about Strauss-Kahn’s arrest from ABC News, the Associated Press and the New York Times made no mention of the maid’s West African background.  But that would soon change.

 

 

Racial Profiling: Impact Missing in the News

Author: 
Teresa Puente
Thursday, February 17, 2011

A recent proliferation of states enacting immigration legislation—some 1,400 bills were introduced in 2010—sparked a flurry of political coverage, much of it noting how politicians backing the measures risked alienating Latino voters. Yet scant attention has been placed on how such laws will impact Latino and immigrant communities, particularly the likely increase in racial and ethnic profiling.

 

Media missed Scott sisters’ big story: Prison sentencing bias

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

There’s still time for journalists to go back and report the real tragedy that affected the sisters and others like them

Initial media coverage of the Scott sisters centered on their personal plight and civil rights activists’ long-fought battle to get them released. Most recently, news outlets focused on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s unusual deal that freed them from serving life sentences in prison on the condition that Gladys donate a kidney to her ailing sister, Jamie.

 

Forget 'white boys:' the real plea bargaining story

Friday, October 29, 2010

Let’s take a moment to consider the frustration of Judge Joseph Williams of the Allegheny County Court in Pennsylvania. The judge found himself in the center of a minor media fuss last week after he chastised a prosecutor for offering a man accused of fighting with police officers "a ridiculous plea that only goes to white boys." To be sure, the judge’s phrasing was unfortunate.