the representation of black politicians in media

Chapter 16 of Stephanie Greco Larson’s “Media and Minorities” is called ‘News Coverage of Black Candidates and Politicians’ discussing the amount of coverage black politicians receive compared to white politicians and the type of coverage they are given. There have been a number of studies conducted in an attempt to find meaning in comparing the coverage of black politicians to white politicians. In the 1970’s, one study found that in newspapers, “black candidates received significantly more coverage in longer articles than whites; however, white candidates’ coverage was more likely than blacks’ to be prominent” (203). Between the years of 1967 and 1990, black politicians in campaigns for mayor got more coverage, especially prominent coverage, compared to white politicians. In the late 90’s, no difference could be found between the coverage of white and black politicians in newspapers. Looking at newspapers in the 1970’s again, the tone of the stories about black candidates were taken into account and found that, “18 percent was coded as ‘negative’ or ‘unqualified negative,’ compared to 15 percent of the whites’” (206). Black representatives in the U.S. House believe that they are not taken as seriously by the press as white representatives are. Also, a survey revealed that two-thirds of black politicians believe that they are treated differently by the press than white politicians. Then again, white candidates claim that black candidates are favored by the press because they are black and the press doesn’t want to come across as racist.

From Dec. 10, 2007 to Nov. 10, 2008, Obama’s picture has been on eleven TIME magazine covers while his opponent McCain’s picture has been on five TIME magazine covers. It’s interesting, but along with the rest of the press given to the election it is difficult to say that any amount of coverage or type of coverage leading up to the election can be attributed to Obama’s race or McCain’s race. I wonder with any of the other studies whether they tell us anything significant, because, for example, the difference between 18 and 15 percent in the study of newspaper coverage is a close percentage and the difference could be due to a number of factors that were not taken into account when the study was searching for discrimination against race. On page 210 of Larson’s book, it said, “Blacks are also stereotyped as ‘novelties’ because whiteness is assumed to be the ‘norm,’ which makes racial minorities the exception,” so the amount of coverage that the black presidential candidate received could be the press’ interest in such a ‘novelty,’ or it could be a double standard, such as claimed by white candidates in Larson’s chapter. The coverage of black politicians is hard to keep track of, because you can’t prove that any coverage is the result of a politician’s race and there are various other factors that influence media coverage.