The thing I keep coming back to in the reading is that the Emmett Till case was only notable (and therefore catalyzing) because of the degree of media attention it received. It wasn’t responsible for leading to change because it was outrageous for a 14-year-old to be killed and it didn’t cause new controversy because the killers were acquitted. In the grand scheme of history, the Till case was not unusual, it was just documented.
According to tonight’s readings, the reason the case became so revolutionary was because of the technological changes that allowed the worldwide public to turn an eye to the case proceedings happening in small-town Mississippi. By the mid-1950s the world was becoming increasingly connected. Because of the relative accessibility of cheap air travel and the widespread reach of television, reporters from across the country and around the globe were able to descend upon the proceedings and disseminate their writing to the public. In doing so, this writing was able to incite public outrage that had not been nearly as widespread for previous lynching cases.
Another key piece was the attention paid to the issue by not just African-American writers but also by journalists from the white press. As we’ve been discussing in class, there are many sides to the same story and many different stories that constitute the truth. In order to give people the widest understanding of an issue, more than one voice needs to be present. Even a piece that attempts to be objective will frame its objectivity through the lens of the person creating the work. Thus, a one-sided attempt at objectivity may inadvertently stifle the voices of those who are not represented. The adage that history is told by the victors plays an interesting role in the documentation of the Till incident. The presence of the white media made a wider white audience pay attention to the issue, but the coexistence with African-American reporters helped to ensure that a white-washed story was not the only one that was heard on the issue.
When Mamie Till made the decision to call upon the press, she not only ensured that her son’s death was documented, but she also drew attention to a widespread issue of civil rights that ultimately led to a movement. The brutal murder of Emmett Till became a wider rallying call that continues to unite black activists calling for change. But the reason it was able to have the impact it had is due to the fact that it became known and people fought to make change happen.
The readings from tonight helped illuminate for me the importance of journalism in black people’s struggle for equity and freedom starting at the turn of the 19th century with Ida B. Wells. Ida B. Wells, a black female investigative journalist born in 1862, believed fundamentally in the power of information and news for everyday black citizens. A contributor to and eventual part-owner of the black newspaper Free Speech, she frequently printed the paper on pink paper to distinguish it from its competitors and further encourage readership. Not shockingly—given her positionality and the era during which she lived—she stirred up many controversies, including one surrounding black arsonists in the late 19th century. In 1891 in a town near Georgetown, Kentucky, blacks set fire to a town to retaliate against the lynching of a black man who had killed a white man for having “intimate relations” with his wife (Giddings 172). The Free Speech published an editorial supporting the arsonists, which was “unsigned, but had Ida’s ‘name’ all over it” (Giddings 173). White-owned newspapers across the region condemned the paper, and there was even a resolution to retract the editorial, which Nightingale—and presumably Wells—refused. In this way, Wells is a prime example of how black activists used journalism as a means to an end and exemplifies Roberts and Klibanoff’s argument of the ‘legacy of protest’ in the black press. In their book, Roberts and Klibanoff explain how both white and black newspapers in the past served primarily as advocates. However, white newspapers eventually shifted to a more ‘general-interest’ news approach, while black newspapers maintained their connection and commitment to advocacy and protest.
In addition to black journalists who directed conversation surrounding racism and inequities in their work, black citizens also utilized journalism as a means to convey their anger and frustration, such as Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie. Till’s horrific murder was the first “media circus” that “ignited national interest” thanks to Mamie; “Emmett’s murder would never have become a watershed historical moment without Mamie finding the strength to make her private grief a public matter” (Tyson 75; 69). Tyson describes how Mamie used the press to ensure her son’s death garnered national attention and outrage. For example, reporters and photographers from every Chicago newspaper covered the scene when Till’s body returned home from Mississippi, and Mamie capitalized on this moment, writing later: “And I kept screaming, as the cameras kept flashing…in one long, explosive moment that would be captured for the morning editions.” (Tyson 68). Thus we see how Mamie intentionally used newspapers for her political activism and arguably exploited journalists’ obsession with tragedy and the sensational (that we’ve been critiquing throughout class) for her own agenda.
Finally, in thinking about who objectivity really serves, I came to two conclusions: first, the dominant (i.e., white people) and second, newspapers themselves. We saw throughout the readings tonight how the dominant, hegemonic interpretation is so often also framed as the ‘objective,’ which ignores and erases so much subjectivity that is frequently crucial to marginalized groups’ experience. For example, regarding the acquittal of Till’s murderers, Jackson Daily News wrote: “The cold hard fact concerning the acquittal in Tallahatchie County of the two alleged slayers of a black youth from Chicago is that the prosecution failed to prove its case” (183). While this statement is technically the ‘objective truth,’ it completely ignores the explicitly racist fundamentals of the acquittal.
...Moreover, in reflecting on this question of objectivity, I couldn’t help but think about the current debate between journalists and citizens about whether or not to call President Trump a racist. Most news outlets including the New York Times and the Washington Post have avoided calling President Trump a racist because being a racist is a character judgement, which is subjective rather than objective. Thus, in journalists’ pursuit of being ‘objective’ (which is theoretically a worthy—though impossible—goal), they fail to call President Trump what I argue he is—a racist. In this way, we see how ‘objectivity’ serves newspapers in not being conceived as political or biased but at the same time, newspapers may well be alienating readers of color who see this choice as siding with the oppressor in not calling out racism and bigotry.
Throughout this class we have been discussing the relationship between journalism and democracy, tonight's readings contribute nicely to this discussion as the readings highlight the importance of the press during the civil rights era. During times of heated segregation, violence, lynchings, and social, economic, and legal inequalities the public press was used to document these injustices, commonly by black journalists and publications. At the dawn of new technology, television, and international press issues of racism and inequality in the US could no longer be given the cold shoulder. I think that the courage of Mamie Till to bring the tragic story of her son, Emmett Till, to the public press outside of the jaded Southern press sparked conversation of race relations in America. The same response came from Myrdal's "An American Dilemma" study of race relations in America that illuminated the astonishing ignorance of the treatment of blacks in America.
Broadly, the readings are woven together with a theme of giving a voice to the "voiceless" and the greater impact it has on society. This idea is similar to engaged journalism's approach of using narratives from the public to weave together a story that helps spark and shape discourse surrounding the matter. Dowd-Hall writes that "facts" are often the primary source of action (p.1239) however we must call into question who, where, and how the facts are published and what biases they might hold. Throughout American history "facts" presented in white dominated media, textbooks, histories, television, etc. has erased and silenced marginalized bodies in order to keep American ideology in tact. While the US has functioned on the notion of free speech, the media has regulated what "free speech" is of importance and should be published which, until recently (post civil rights and Ida B. Well's investigative journalist work) continued to reinforce the secondary-status of people of color in America. Since then, more inclusive practices and memorials have been made to help recover and reconcile the erasure and silencing of marginalized voices however the issues (racism) are still deeply rooted in America today.
These readings really illuminate the power of the press in shaping national discourse. We as engaged journalists should note the significant power in portraying stories and keep in mind that we are mere vessels for the information we gather.
In the age of segregation, objectivity serves the dominant group, and, in the US, that means White people. The “objectivity” in the press is, as Hall describes “a color-blind conservatism that is breathtakingly ahistorical and blind to social facts.” There is this publishing of facts about Black Americans by white people, but there is an ignoring of the social structures in which they occurred leading to “impoverish[ing] public discourse, discourage[ing] investment in public institutions, and undermin[ing] our will to address the inequalities and injustices that surround us now.” The white objectivity in journalism disregards the racist society Black Americans are living in and, therefore, leads to stagnation and keeping Black Americans in the same marginalized position.
While the white journalists were publishing objective news about Black Americans (if they did that, many white journalists did not see segregation even as a story) and general interest news, Black American journalists were publishing activist journalism for themselves. Though, Black newspapers rarely stayed in business after nine years. What is interesting about these papers is they focused on publishing positive Black people’s stories. They focused on the same sensationalism that White journalists did, but instead they focused on hyperbolizing positive stories. I would argue that sensationalizing crime and other bad news about Black American’s is unethical, but is exaggerating positive stories about them to counteract the negative ethical?
In the Emmett Till story, it was interesting how Till’s mother was able to use the media to get national attention to the severe violence caused by racism that occurred against her son. As stated in “The Blood of Emmett Till,” this murder would not have been as publicized if Till’s mother did not “find the strength to make her private grief a public matter.” For example, she made the decision to have Till’s casket open to publicize the horrors that occurred to her son. Though this was traumatic for her, she needed the public to see the extent of the violence. She also publicized her grief and trauma through screaming and collapsing in front of the press. Till’s mother had to publicize her and her son’s trauma to get the media’s attention and coverage of the horribly racist occurrings in the United States.
Specifically focusing on the issues of African Americans/Black people, the struggle of simply being a person is highlighted in journalistic portrayals. They were the victim, or the perpetrator, and roles seemed to flex far and few between. In the case of Emmett Till, where the Civil Rights movement was started to get into full gear, there was more backlash for depicting black men as sex crazy animals and perpetrating the lies that all black men would rape white women. Therefore I was very interested in articles written about earlier situations, like the one concerning Ida B. Wells. The article describing Wells’s participation in journalism was particularly interesting; as being educated during Black History Month as a child, one simply hears that black men and women did important things, but you’re “too young” to properly learn about what they did. Ida’s Free Speech was revolutionary. Having a black perspective on black issues was, unfortunately, not really addressed at all during the time frame in which she lived. White opinion of black people was still for the most part based upon racist ideals that blacks were inherently not as intelligent or virtuous as people. Even black papers were divided because of the figure of Fortune there. A paper described to have “abolitionist sentiments” warned that the conference of blacks in Chicago would only serve to further divide the races. The positive reception came from New York where Fortune had worked: stating that African Americans were simply using their rights as citizens. The Chicago Tribune was paranoid of Fortune and called him “oily”. Thus division continued, despite the good work of the convention. The “truth” of the matter, as we’ve been discussing, is very subjective when it comes to social issues. Especially at a time like that, the truth was thought of as much more binary. For many papers, the truth was that black people were somehow lower than white people, and for several others, that black people were equal in all aspects. The concept of black rights in the time period was still ridiculously controversial that focusing on a single person becomes the image. Just as Martin Luther King Jr. became the beacon of the Civil Rights movement, Fortune became the picture of this convention. Isn’t this what happens with school shootings as well? And typically of course it is the shooter who is given the attention, as they are what’s seen as pivotal. However, when it comes to the Parkland shooting, I can’t help but think of Emma Gonzalez and her passion. Coverage focused more on her and the wave of anger, not grief, which came after the shooting. There is a significant shift, where we are no longer seeing perpetrators, but victims. As Fortune was portrayed in a critical lens, he was also covered in a positive lens, like Gonzalez. Similarly as well, the coverage was focused on him and not what white people thought about him.
For this reflection, I’m going to dive into the question of who objectivity serves. Of course, true objectivity wouldn’t serve anyone- it would just be the truth. But the objectivity presented by a world dominated by white supremacist ideals is what we have to work with.
“In Sweden, newspapers wanted to report the news but were blocked by the government. In America, the First Amendment kept the government in check, but the press, other than black newspapers and a handful of liberal southern editors, simply didn’t recognize racism in America as a story. The segregation of the Negro in America, by law in the South and by neighborhood and social and economic stratification in the North, had engulfed the press as well as America’s citizens” (Roberts).
Because Black people in America were so completely phased out of normal life, they didn’t even get the chance to tell their story. White America did such a thorough job of controlling the nation that all they had to do is sit back and watch racism happen and have nobody talk about it. The saying goes “History is written by the victors” but a more fitting saying would be that history is controlled by the press. Because so few institutions were actively covering white supremacy in these times, it was difficult for people to understand unless they were directly involved.
Myrdal is effective in summarizing the issue presented by an unfair media. “‘The Northerner does not have his social conscience and all his political thinking permeated with the Negro problem as the Southerner does. Rather, he succeeds in forgetting about it most of the time. The Northern newspapers help him by minimizing all Negro news, except crime news’” (Roberts).
This is an issue that continues today - and one that was stated clearly by the Reverend Dr. King. To paraphrase, the greatest threat to racism is not in the most outwardly bigoted people, but in those that would prefer calm over justice, and comfort over change. It’s the modern Northerners that represent a majority of the population, and continue to avoid prevalent issues of race and gender, further cementing their higher status and leaving the oppressed behind.
This is why we need a truly free and fair press. Objectivity needs to evolve to reach upwards to a brighter future, just like we discussed in class about Dewey.
W2D4 - Black Americans & The Press- Isabella McShea
The erasure of radical black protest throughout history has been uncovered and properly discussed in recent years. In one of my first classes at CC, taught by professor Jamal Ratchford, I became more aware of the “whitewashing” of the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most frustrating part of these newfound realities concerning the silencing of the Black perspective is that we see it happening even today. With the #MeToo movement, Tarana Burke was not given the proper credit for starting this phenomenon as it was co-opted by a more influential celebrity. Although some reparations have been made for Tarana, the experience of erasure is not something that we can pride ourselves on having left “in the past”.
I found the Myrdal article fascinating in the context of how an outside academic perspective was able to concretely analyze and predict the experience of Black people in America (pp. 6). He, like many black activists, believed that the publicity of horrific experiences of racist, classism, and sexism within the black community could help the issue. Although a relevant theory at the time, it is again frustrating to realize how the press has not been able to highlight and help African-Americans in the United States. For example, police violence against black community has been well documented on social media platforms. From Facebook live to twitter, brutally honest footage and crowdsourced journalism has emerged as a form of activism against police brutality in the United States. Despite the collective consciousness within our society on this issue, with real live updates from social media, there have not been many great strides to address this issue.
Within the context of “objectivity”, it is important to realize that objective facts about MLK or other prominent black activists have been twisted in order to alleviate the burden of historical reality on the white majority. I want to be extremely critical of the fact that we are analyzing the civil rights movement and the objectivity and positionally of black folks in the United States as an all white passing group. By not actually bringing in folks with that experience and expertise of being a black person in America, I feel that we are not actually doing the necessary work. It is not enough for us to understand that MLK was radical, we must admit that we are fully and totally incapable of understanding these experiences in a meaningful context. I would have loved to see any black professors or students at CC be apart of this discussion. Even better, reading about how current black radical activists are reshaping journalism may have also helped this process.
Tonight’s readings were a lot to unpack. As I started to read the first article, I found myself having to take a major step back and recognize my positionality before continuing. It’s really important to understand that we won’t understand this topic completely. Although we can comprehend the text, we cannot comprehend the impact or depth of the subject. I’m sure other students have felt the same way, I just felt it was vital to address these aspects before I even continued reading. It is also important for journalists to understand this well. I thought Madeline touched on this really well within her interview and her ideology towards the subject should be carried throughout all journalists in this position.
We talked a lot today about truth and journalism. It was said that one must look at truth within journalism through the lense of what the story is trying to educate us about. The truth of segregation in journalism and America is certainly not solved or far from over. But it is the responsibility of other journalists to hold each other accountable. Reading these articles has only solidified my feelings of advocacy within journalism. Journalists have a platform and talent of writing to reach a multitude of people, and it should be done in a way to hold others accountable and advocate for others.
“Nothing in the dominant story reminds us that this demonstration, which mobilized people from all walks of life and from every part of this country, was a ‘march for jobs and freedom’—and that from early on women were in the front ranks, helping to link race, class, and gender and thus foreshadowing both black feminism and the expansive movement of movements the civil rights struggle set in motion” (Hall 1253).
“The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” published in The Oxford Journal, offers insightful commentary to social change through the lens of historical context. A common theme I am noticing with both the Civil Rights Movement as well as other historical challenges we as Americans have faced is this emphasis on progression, whether upwards or downwards. With the Civil Rights Movement, we often tell the story as a story of hope and accomplishment; a story of overcoming prejudice and defeating racism, as if those are mentalities of the past. The article reiterates the hyper-emphasis and romanticism today on the “I Had a Dream” speech, allowing white Americans to ignore the mass murder and conflict that occurred before, during, and after Dr. King’s assassination. Instead of viewing civil rights as an ongoing issue, Americans tend to mark it on a timeline, assuming it’s finished.
Positive progress means that we can become complacent about certain social issues because they are no longer relevant. Negative progress does the opposite, but also makes it easier for citizens to place social issues into boxes. Negative progress calls citizens to action, making it a public issue that said problem is getting worse immediately. In terms of school shootings, we have a desire to believe that they are getting progressively worse, currently out of control regardless of the true statistics. The fear of school shootings has risen in the time since Columbine and we tend to frame the problem of guns in schools as one that has so negatively progressed that it is almost out of our control. I’m not sure if it’s an American desire, or a human one, to oversimplify history as well as the present; but when utilized in journalism it has the power to ignore the voices who conflict the popular narrative. Those are the voices engaged journalism has the power to give the platform to have a voice.
Colorblindness and the ideologies that surround that mindset were never really combatted against or criticized by the media, but they were political tools to invoke emotion and racism from constituents. American political discourse, especially surrounding social change, constantly aspires progress, whether positive or negative. The stories that choose to be shared from the past often lack the intersectionality necessary to understand such complex social and political issues. The past is the key to shaping and understanding the future. If we paint the past in a simple light that gives us closure, we lack the storytelling necessary for a holistic path to the future.
Maintaining “full objectivity” is close to impossible when focusing on issues of racial injustice. The way facts are conveyed, the way the story is relayed, the way the author picks and chooses which pieces to incorporate into the story all skew its supposed “full objectivity,” and subjectivity inevitably works itself into the piece. The author’s truth is bound to come out in covering any issue as polarizing as racial injustice. Hall looks at how pieces of journalistic work over time have whitewashed and over-simplified the ongoing African American struggle for civil rights. The ways in which journalists have depicted aspects of the movement—Hall mentions the selectivity journalists often undergo when quoting lines from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches—make it seem much more contained and clean than it really was/is. She also stresses the fact that the majority of journalists only gave the movement full coverage and attention when they had a charismatic leader—a face to focus on, rather than just the idea of the movement itself. Journalists also began to romanticize and sensationalize the suffering that these protesting African Americans were going through during the movement. Journalists’ tendency to glorify and condense their focus often prevented them from writing honest, 100% objective pieces. However, the notion of objectivity is one they continued to claim. Soon, white journalists’ “objectivity” when it came to covering the Civil Rights Movement became a privileged way of looking at the issue.
Some might argue that in the throws of the Civil Rights Movement—during the ‘60s and ‘70s—black journalists wrote inherently activist pieces. This goes back to the critical race studies theory that any and all works written by a black writer, or any other person who is a member of a race or ethnicity that has faced immense prejudice, are inherently political. Believers of this theory would argue that to be a black writer is to directly defy and challenge the barriers surrounding one’s race—one’s entire existence. To a critical race theorist, any black writer—whether a journalist, a poet, a novelist, etc.—is writing activist pieces. It’s fairly easy to make this argument about pieces written by Ida B. Wells, who is more blatantly political through her works than others. Especially for a person who deals with prejudice and racism daily in most, if not all aspects of his or her life, achieving “full objectivity” with no central conscious guiding the piece is an incredibly difficult task.
I was struck by Logan’s point, that “all works written by a black writer...are inherently political.” In trying to guide my thoughts on this, I found this to be a poignant statement. In terms of advocacy/activist journalism, I think that I haven’t been giving it enough space as to how multifaceted it must be. The readings discuss journalistic activism from both black and white groups, and they illuminate the disparity between what is read, published, and put into political action. We’ve discussed truth-seeking and what the role of journalism is, but have not yet unpacked how affected readers are by the authors of journalism. So, the comment about the inherent political nature of any black speech is reminder, backed by the readings, of how readers sort their journalism into different, subjective categories.
My view of the concepts of advocacy and activism journalism, at their most basic form, has not changed. However, seeing how much more work must be done by black authors and communities to be heard, yet how those pieces are much more quickly assumed to be advocacy pieces or dramatizing, speaks to the lack of objectivity in our current journalistic pursuits. Objectivity serves those who have the power to be objective and remove themselves from a scenario, who have the power to remain mainly unaffected. Objectivity serves those with the most power -- in the age of segregation, white men stood at the top of the objectivity pyramid, with black men considered to reside far below. One can be objective, perhaps, when one doesn’t have need to fight to be heard. And, this brings us back to the discussion of truth -- is there ever truly an objective story? Or do we just label the story that comes from the most commonly accepted source of power as the most objective one, the one least marred by untruthfulness?
These readings came together to prove the point that the black press was incredibly powerful during the Civil Rights movement. The press worked within black communities to inform and empower people, in a form of activist journalism, to start a widespread movement. In this case, activism journalism had a productive role in society along with a purpose. Mamie’s alerting of the press almost immediately after her son’s death was a bold move. She was able to use the press for good by using her son’s story to reflect so many similar deaths across the South and incite an uproar in communities. I was previously unaware that the famous Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat scene happened only 4 days after Emmett Tills’ death and that soon after that, African-American people refusing to leave segregated lunch counters. The catalyst to the beginning of the Civil Rights movement was press coverage — including black and white press coverage at the trial for the murder of Tills.
In the time of a segregated press, the black press could empower the black community but the white press must convince the white community with facts and repetition of those facts (The Race Beat). Did the white press ever fully do its job? People still base beliefs on racial stereotypes today. Truth is constructed and comes from a variety of sources but the press plays a large role in some peoples’ day to day truths. I believe that still today the press, especially the press reaching upper class white people, has a responsibility to report on issues of race with facts, stories from real people, and an occasional positive lens. As long as the color blind narrative (discussed by Hull) still remains in use, the press has a responsibility to report on race in the way they find most moral.
Emmett Tills’ story is a relevant example regarding how death can be sensationalized to create a movement. The fact that he was a young boy murdered (somewhat) randomly echoes the narratives we hear around school shootings (not including the focus on race, of course) and acts as a warning in our work. The death of young people can be striking enough to start a movement because people feel deep sympathy and later, anger and confusion. Sensationalizing a death can also be immoral in the sense that disrespects the victim by leaving the memory of who the real person was behind and molding them into a character to best fit the movement.
At a time when the media constantly receives criticism, the powerful story of Emmett Till shows the good media attention can sometimes have. So far in this class, we have seen video cameras pushed into the faces of gun violence survivors and watched newscasters exploit children. Although we read about community journalism and studied what it means to hold the title of engaged journalist, we rarely encounter the positive side of publicity. According to ‘The Race Beats’ by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, “news shapes movements.” In the case of Emmett Till this idea holds true. From the Washington Post to Reader’s Digest to the Chicago Defender to Sweden’s Le Democrate to the Jackson Daily, coverage of Emmett Till’s murder inspired a call for change. Emmett Till’s story contained no unique qualities, far too many people of color are unjustly murdered over race. Nevertheless, the media attention largely inspired by Tiil’s mother, Mamie, and others brought to surface the issue of race, murder, and inequality that an American Audience could not deny. The “media circus” as described by Timothy Tison connected black Chicago with black Mississippi, and inspired movement in Europe. We normally think of activist journalism as inspiring others to act, but Emmett Till’s news coverage is an example of how journalists can modify a national (and international) dialogue for social change.
However, as ‘The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Movements of the Past’ by Jaquelyn Dowd Hall points out the issue of race in America still exists as a major difficulty. The idea brought up in the reading of color-blind conservatism as a blinder for inequality in America shows our unwillingness to come face-to-face with the issue of race. Furthermore, policies such as redlining, institutions such as prisons, and gaps such as wealth show the ways “the past weighs on the present.” Hopefully, in the future journalists can come together as they did in the case of Emmett Till to promote social change and activism.
What struck me most about Roberts’ and Klibanoff’s piece The Race Beat was the impact that black-run newspapers had on the communities they reported for, despite how short lived the publications themselves tended to be. Though the average lifespan of black-run newspapers was only nine years, they provided a venue for communities to become politically informed and, as a result, more politically engaged in their own communities. The role of the “race beat” provided black communities in America to have agency over information. No longer did reading the paper mean reading further racist portrayals. Instead, a national debate among black leaders arose and became a part of the American dialogue.
Black-run newspapers afforded the African American community their first opportunity to have agency and control over the manner in which they were represented. Newspapers provided a “common stage” for African Americans to prioritize what they wanted to be covered and the way in which it would happen. They provided a platform for national discourse and increased political engagement in African American communities across the country. The continued segregation of the white and black run presses was indicative of the nation’s culture at the time, but did allow for black-run newspapers to operate on their own. If African American journalists had joined pre-existing papers run by white people, much of the content that was published in African American-run newspapers throughout the years would have likely been edited out.
It was not necessarily the content of each individual article published by African American journalists across the years that allowed for black-run newspapers to be so impactful. While this was important, African American journalism as a whole gave an entire population their first chance to represent themselves as they would like to be represented, without exterior editing or silencing. In doing so, it provided African Americans with a new form of agency as coverage was no longer limited to the white view of the world.
Emmett Till's case illuminates the unjust racial issues that still impact our country. The obvious murder and torture of the young boy was something that would not have gotten much attention had it not been for his family's persistence and the media coverage. Wright, Emmett's uncle, knew the sad truth of his nephew's demise and was surprised by the call for a trial, "He knew how remarkable it was that there would even be a trial and knew to a near certainty that the murderers would be found not guilty by a jury of white men," (Tyson 123). Emmett Till’s case shows how instrumental the media can be in terms of social change. Yes, the trial seemed lost before the jury was even selected due to strong racial prejudice. However, due to the coverage of his murder a trial had to be called. The media coverage did more than just get a trial for the murder of Emmet Till, it impacted the United States international relations as well, “Many believed America itself had killed Emmett Till. Its allies were concerned, its enemies gleeful,” (Tyson 189). The media allowed the public eye to be turn on the racial injustice that plagued America. This in turn lead to a trial, criticism from international allies, and a deep look at the brutal murder of a young boy. Although what happened to Emmett Till was not necessarily uncommon, his mother’s push to involve the media lead to coverage that shocked the nation.
While the media in Emmett Till’s case changed and broadcasted the response to his murder, there were still limitation on the media’s ability to be a catalyst to social change. In the Journal of American History, Hall explained how the medias coverage was selective, “The mass media, in turn, made the protest ‘one of the great news stories of the modern era,’ but they did so very selectively,” (Hall 1236). The language of journalists’ interest ‘waxing’ and ‘waning’ shows how even though the media has the potential to produce an immense amount of social change, they do so sparingly and only when it is beneficial to them. Activists’ had to play the part of charismatic and interesting to garner the media attention they desired to promote their cause. Although the media had the potential to cause change they did so selectively.
I want to discuss the issue of who objectivity serves. I could easily say that in almost all cases, objectivity serves the oppressor, but I do think there needs greater social context. I think what we saw during the civil rights movement was a society that was indubitably shaped by bigotry, racism, and discrimination.
African Americans were seen merely as a thing and society, and as a result, their coverage was completely nonexistent. And since there was no other institution that was actively working to lift African Americans up, individuals, Myrdal specifically, saw that a breakthrough could only happen through the press. Myrdal's study found exactly that. There seemed to be a string connection between growing coverage of discrimination and a growing civil rights movement.
I think that just letting the idea of objectivity go unquestioned is probably not the best notion for an active citizen, let alone a journalist. Rather, something that is wholly accurate and provides fair and honest context— coverage of the Black experience in America in this case— should be the goal. Beyond the civil rights movements, the anti-war movement during Vietnam did not seem to change until the coverage of the war changed, showing the some of the atrocities that were occurring to our soldiers, but most importantly to the people and lands of Vietnam.
I think I want to close on the notion of activist journalism. I find that the term is incredibly misconstruing. In my opinion, Tells experiences and stories that are AS IMPORTANT as the ones that are told more often. It is the job of a good, engaged journalist to help find those stories. In today's world I think about issues that people who identify as transgender have to face. Most recently, the Supreme Court held up a ban of transgender individuals role in the military. Would I describe journalistic work— telling the stories and experiences, and truths of these individuals— as purely activist? I find that this should be deemed as solely the right work to do.
The thing I keep coming back to in the reading is that the Emmett Till case was only notable (and therefore catalyzing) because of the degree of media attention it received. It wasn’t responsible for leading to change because it was outrageous for a 14-year-old to be killed and it didn’t cause new controversy because the killers were acquitted. In the grand scheme of history, the Till case was not unusual, it was just documented.
ReplyDeleteAccording to tonight’s readings, the reason the case became so revolutionary was because of the technological changes that allowed the worldwide public to turn an eye to the case proceedings happening in small-town Mississippi. By the mid-1950s the world was becoming increasingly connected. Because of the relative accessibility of cheap air travel and the widespread reach of television, reporters from across the country and around the globe were able to descend upon the proceedings and disseminate their writing to the public. In doing so, this writing was able to incite public outrage that had not been nearly as widespread for previous lynching cases.
Another key piece was the attention paid to the issue by not just African-American writers but also by journalists from the white press. As we’ve been discussing in class, there are many sides to the same story and many different stories that constitute the truth. In order to give people the widest understanding of an issue, more than one voice needs to be present. Even a piece that attempts to be objective will frame its objectivity through the lens of the person creating the work. Thus, a one-sided attempt at objectivity may inadvertently stifle the voices of those who are not represented. The adage that history is told by the victors plays an interesting role in the documentation of the Till incident. The presence of the white media made a wider white audience pay attention to the issue, but the coexistence with African-American reporters helped to ensure that a white-washed story was not the only one that was heard on the issue.
When Mamie Till made the decision to call upon the press, she not only ensured that her son’s death was documented, but she also drew attention to a widespread issue of civil rights that ultimately led to a movement. The brutal murder of Emmett Till became a wider rallying call that continues to unite black activists calling for change. But the reason it was able to have the impact it had is due to the fact that it became known and people fought to make change happen.
The readings from tonight helped illuminate for me the importance of journalism in black people’s struggle for equity and freedom starting at the turn of the 19th century with Ida B. Wells. Ida B. Wells, a black female investigative journalist born in 1862, believed fundamentally in the power of information and news for everyday black citizens. A contributor to and eventual part-owner of the black newspaper Free Speech, she frequently printed the paper on pink paper to distinguish it from its competitors and further encourage readership. Not shockingly—given her positionality and the era during which she lived—she stirred up many controversies, including one surrounding black arsonists in the late 19th century. In 1891 in a town near Georgetown, Kentucky, blacks set fire to a town to retaliate against the lynching of a black man who had killed a white man for having “intimate relations” with his wife (Giddings 172). The Free Speech published an editorial supporting the arsonists, which was “unsigned, but had Ida’s ‘name’ all over it” (Giddings 173). White-owned newspapers across the region condemned the paper, and there was even a resolution to retract the editorial, which Nightingale—and presumably Wells—refused. In this way, Wells is a prime example of how black activists used journalism as a means to an end and exemplifies Roberts and Klibanoff’s argument of the ‘legacy of protest’ in the black press. In their book, Roberts and Klibanoff explain how both white and black newspapers in the past served primarily as advocates. However, white newspapers eventually shifted to a more ‘general-interest’ news approach, while black newspapers maintained their connection and commitment to advocacy and protest.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to black journalists who directed conversation surrounding racism and inequities in their work, black citizens also utilized journalism as a means to convey their anger and frustration, such as Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie. Till’s horrific murder was the first “media circus” that “ignited national interest” thanks to Mamie; “Emmett’s murder would never have become a watershed historical moment without Mamie finding the strength to make her private grief a public matter” (Tyson 75; 69). Tyson describes how Mamie used the press to ensure her son’s death garnered national attention and outrage. For example, reporters and photographers from every Chicago newspaper covered the scene when Till’s body returned home from Mississippi, and Mamie capitalized on this moment, writing later: “And I kept screaming, as the cameras kept flashing…in one long, explosive moment that would be captured for the morning editions.” (Tyson 68). Thus we see how Mamie intentionally used newspapers for her political activism and arguably exploited journalists’ obsession with tragedy and the sensational (that we’ve been critiquing throughout class) for her own agenda.
Finally, in thinking about who objectivity really serves, I came to two conclusions: first, the dominant (i.e., white people) and second, newspapers themselves. We saw throughout the readings tonight how the dominant, hegemonic interpretation is so often also framed as the ‘objective,’ which ignores and erases so much subjectivity that is frequently crucial to marginalized groups’ experience. For example, regarding the acquittal of Till’s murderers, Jackson Daily News wrote: “The cold hard fact concerning the acquittal in Tallahatchie County of the two alleged slayers of a black youth from Chicago is that the prosecution failed to prove its case” (183). While this statement is technically the ‘objective truth,’ it completely ignores the explicitly racist fundamentals of the acquittal.
...Moreover, in reflecting on this question of objectivity, I couldn’t help but think about the current debate between journalists and citizens about whether or not to call President Trump a racist. Most news outlets including the New York Times and the Washington Post have avoided calling President Trump a racist because being a racist is a character judgement, which is subjective rather than objective. Thus, in journalists’ pursuit of being ‘objective’ (which is theoretically a worthy—though impossible—goal), they fail to call President Trump what I argue he is—a racist. In this way, we see how ‘objectivity’ serves newspapers in not being conceived as political or biased but at the same time, newspapers may well be alienating readers of color who see this choice as siding with the oppressor in not calling out racism and bigotry.
DeleteThroughout this class we have been discussing the relationship between journalism and democracy, tonight's readings contribute nicely to this discussion as the readings highlight the importance of the press during the civil rights era. During times of heated segregation, violence, lynchings, and social, economic, and legal inequalities the public press was used to document these injustices, commonly by black journalists and publications. At the dawn of new technology, television, and international press issues of racism and inequality in the US could no longer be given the cold shoulder. I think that the courage of Mamie Till to bring the tragic story of her son, Emmett Till, to the public press outside of the jaded Southern press sparked conversation of race relations in America. The same response came from Myrdal's "An American Dilemma" study of race relations in America that illuminated the astonishing ignorance of the treatment of blacks in America.
ReplyDeleteBroadly, the readings are woven together with a theme of giving a voice to the "voiceless" and the greater impact it has on society. This idea is similar to engaged journalism's approach of using narratives from the public to weave together a story that helps spark and shape discourse surrounding the matter. Dowd-Hall writes that "facts" are often the primary source of action (p.1239) however we must call into question who, where, and how the facts are published and what biases they might hold. Throughout American history "facts" presented in white dominated media, textbooks, histories, television, etc. has erased and silenced marginalized bodies in order to keep American ideology in tact. While the US has functioned on the notion of free speech, the media has regulated what "free speech" is of importance and should be published which, until recently (post civil rights and Ida B. Well's investigative journalist work) continued to reinforce the secondary-status of people of color in America. Since then, more inclusive practices and memorials have been made to help recover and reconcile the erasure and silencing of marginalized voices however the issues (racism) are still deeply rooted in America today.
These readings really illuminate the power of the press in shaping national discourse. We as engaged journalists should note the significant power in portraying stories and keep in mind that we are mere vessels for the information we gather.
In the age of segregation, objectivity serves the dominant group, and, in the US, that means White people. The “objectivity” in the press is, as Hall describes “a color-blind conservatism that is breathtakingly ahistorical and blind to social facts.” There is this publishing of facts about Black Americans by white people, but there is an ignoring of the social structures in which they occurred leading to “impoverish[ing] public discourse, discourage[ing] investment in public institutions, and undermin[ing] our will to address the inequalities and injustices that surround us now.” The white objectivity in journalism disregards the racist society Black Americans are living in and, therefore, leads to stagnation and keeping Black Americans in the same marginalized position.
ReplyDeleteWhile the white journalists were publishing objective news about Black Americans (if they did that, many white journalists did not see segregation even as a story) and general interest news, Black American journalists were publishing activist journalism for themselves. Though, Black newspapers rarely stayed in business after nine years. What is interesting about these papers is they focused on publishing positive Black people’s stories. They focused on the same sensationalism that White journalists did, but instead they focused on hyperbolizing positive stories. I would argue that sensationalizing crime and other bad news about Black American’s is unethical, but is exaggerating positive stories about them to counteract the negative ethical?
In the Emmett Till story, it was interesting how Till’s mother was able to use the media to get national attention to the severe violence caused by racism that occurred against her son. As stated in “The Blood of Emmett Till,” this murder would not have been as publicized if Till’s mother did not “find the strength to make her private grief a public matter.” For example, she made the decision to have Till’s casket open to publicize the horrors that occurred to her son. Though this was traumatic for her, she needed the public to see the extent of the violence. She also publicized her grief and trauma through screaming and collapsing in front of the press. Till’s mother had to publicize her and her son’s trauma to get the media’s attention and coverage of the horribly racist occurrings in the United States.
Specifically focusing on the issues of African Americans/Black people, the struggle of simply being a person is highlighted in journalistic portrayals. They were the victim, or the perpetrator, and roles seemed to flex far and few between. In the case of Emmett Till, where the Civil Rights movement was started to get into full gear, there was more backlash for depicting black men as sex crazy animals and perpetrating the lies that all black men would rape white women. Therefore I was very interested in articles written about earlier situations, like the one concerning Ida B. Wells. The article describing Wells’s participation in journalism was particularly interesting; as being educated during Black History Month as a child, one simply hears that black men and women did important things, but you’re “too young” to properly learn about what they did. Ida’s Free Speech was revolutionary. Having a black perspective on black issues was, unfortunately, not really addressed at all during the time frame in which she lived. White opinion of black people was still for the most part based upon racist ideals that blacks were inherently not as intelligent or virtuous as people. Even black papers were divided because of the figure of Fortune there. A paper described to have “abolitionist sentiments” warned that the conference of blacks in Chicago would only serve to further divide the races. The positive reception came from New York where Fortune had worked: stating that African Americans were simply using their rights as citizens. The Chicago Tribune was paranoid of Fortune and called him “oily”. Thus division continued, despite the good work of the convention. The “truth” of the matter, as we’ve been discussing, is very subjective when it comes to social issues. Especially at a time like that, the truth was thought of as much more binary. For many papers, the truth was that black people were somehow lower than white people, and for several others, that black people were equal in all aspects. The concept of black rights in the time period was still ridiculously controversial that focusing on a single person becomes the image. Just as Martin Luther King Jr. became the beacon of the Civil Rights movement, Fortune became the picture of this convention. Isn’t this what happens with school shootings as well? And typically of course it is the shooter who is given the attention, as they are what’s seen as pivotal. However, when it comes to the Parkland shooting, I can’t help but think of Emma Gonzalez and her passion. Coverage focused more on her and the wave of anger, not grief, which came after the shooting. There is a significant shift, where we are no longer seeing perpetrators, but victims. As Fortune was portrayed in a critical lens, he was also covered in a positive lens, like Gonzalez. Similarly as well, the coverage was focused on him and not what white people thought about him.
ReplyDeleteFor this reflection, I’m going to dive into the question of who objectivity serves. Of course, true objectivity wouldn’t serve anyone- it would just be the truth. But the objectivity presented by a world dominated by white supremacist ideals is what we have to work with.
ReplyDelete“In Sweden, newspapers wanted to report the news but were blocked by the government. In America, the First Amendment kept the government in check, but the press, other than black newspapers and a handful of liberal southern editors, simply didn’t recognize racism in America as a story. The segregation of the Negro in America, by law in the South and by neighborhood and social and economic stratification in the North, had engulfed the press as well as America’s citizens” (Roberts).
Because Black people in America were so completely phased out of normal life, they didn’t even get the chance to tell their story. White America did such a thorough job of controlling the nation that all they had to do is sit back and watch racism happen and have nobody talk about it. The saying goes “History is written by the victors” but a more fitting saying would be that history is controlled by the press. Because so few institutions were actively covering white supremacy in these times, it was difficult for people to understand unless they were directly involved.
Myrdal is effective in summarizing the issue presented by an unfair media. “‘The Northerner does not have his social conscience and all his political thinking permeated with the Negro problem as the Southerner does. Rather, he succeeds in forgetting about it most of the time. The Northern newspapers help him by minimizing all Negro news, except crime news’” (Roberts).
This is an issue that continues today - and one that was stated clearly by the Reverend Dr. King. To paraphrase, the greatest threat to racism is not in the most outwardly bigoted people, but in those that would prefer calm over justice, and comfort over change. It’s the modern Northerners that represent a majority of the population, and continue to avoid prevalent issues of race and gender, further cementing their higher status and leaving the oppressed behind.
This is why we need a truly free and fair press. Objectivity needs to evolve to reach upwards to a brighter future, just like we discussed in class about Dewey.
-Michael Gorman
DeleteW2D4 - Black Americans & The Press- Isabella McShea
ReplyDeleteThe erasure of radical black protest throughout history has been uncovered and properly discussed in recent years. In one of my first classes at CC, taught by professor Jamal Ratchford, I became more aware of the “whitewashing” of the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most frustrating part of these newfound realities concerning the silencing of the Black perspective is that we see it happening even today. With the #MeToo movement, Tarana Burke was not given the proper credit for starting this phenomenon as it was co-opted by a more influential celebrity. Although some reparations have been made for Tarana, the experience of erasure is not something that we can pride ourselves on having left “in the past”.
I found the Myrdal article fascinating in the context of how an outside academic perspective was able to concretely analyze and predict the experience of Black people in America (pp. 6). He, like many black activists, believed that the publicity of horrific experiences of racist, classism, and sexism within the black community could help the issue. Although a relevant theory at the time, it is again frustrating to realize how the press has not been able to highlight and help African-Americans in the United States. For example, police violence against black community has been well documented on social media platforms. From Facebook live to twitter, brutally honest footage and crowdsourced journalism has emerged as a form of activism against police brutality in the United States. Despite the collective consciousness within our society on this issue, with real live updates from social media, there have not been many great strides to address this issue.
Within the context of “objectivity”, it is important to realize that objective facts about MLK or other prominent black activists have been twisted in order to alleviate the burden of historical reality on the white majority. I want to be extremely critical of the fact that we are analyzing the civil rights movement and the objectivity and positionally of black folks in the United States as an all white passing group. By not actually bringing in folks with that experience and expertise of being a black person in America, I feel that we are not actually doing the necessary work. It is not enough for us to understand that MLK was radical, we must admit that we are fully and totally incapable of understanding these experiences in a meaningful context. I would have loved to see any black professors or students at CC be apart of this discussion. Even better, reading about how current black radical activists are reshaping journalism may have also helped this process.
Tonight’s readings were a lot to unpack. As I started to read the first article, I found myself having to take a major step back and recognize my positionality before continuing. It’s really important to understand that we won’t understand this topic completely. Although we can comprehend the text, we cannot comprehend the impact or depth of the subject. I’m sure other students have felt the same way, I just felt it was vital to address these aspects before I even continued reading. It is also important for journalists to understand this well. I thought Madeline touched on this really well within her interview and her ideology towards the subject should be carried throughout all journalists in this position.
ReplyDeleteWe talked a lot today about truth and journalism. It was said that one must look at truth within journalism through the lense of what the story is trying to educate us about. The truth of segregation in journalism and America is certainly not solved or far from over. But it is the responsibility of other journalists to hold each other accountable. Reading these articles has only solidified my feelings of advocacy within journalism. Journalists have a platform and talent of writing to reach a multitude of people, and it should be done in a way to hold others accountable and advocate for others.
“Nothing in the dominant story reminds us that this demonstration, which mobilized people from all walks of life and from every part of this country, was a ‘march for jobs and freedom’—and that from early on women were in the front ranks, helping to link race, class, and gender and thus foreshadowing both black feminism and the expansive movement of movements the civil rights struggle set in motion” (Hall 1253).
ReplyDelete“The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” published in The Oxford Journal, offers insightful commentary to social change through the lens of historical context. A common theme I am noticing with both the Civil Rights Movement as well as other historical challenges we as Americans have faced is this emphasis on progression, whether upwards or downwards. With the Civil Rights Movement, we often tell the story as a story of hope and accomplishment; a story of overcoming prejudice and defeating racism, as if those are mentalities of the past. The article reiterates the hyper-emphasis and romanticism today on the “I Had a Dream” speech, allowing white Americans to ignore the mass murder and conflict that occurred before, during, and after Dr. King’s assassination. Instead of viewing civil rights as an ongoing issue, Americans tend to mark it on a timeline, assuming it’s finished.
Positive progress means that we can become complacent about certain social issues because they are no longer relevant. Negative progress does the opposite, but also makes it easier for citizens to place social issues into boxes. Negative progress calls citizens to action, making it a public issue that said problem is getting worse immediately. In terms of school shootings, we have a desire to believe that they are getting progressively worse, currently out of control regardless of the true statistics. The fear of school shootings has risen in the time since Columbine and we tend to frame the problem of guns in schools as one that has so negatively progressed that it is almost out of our control. I’m not sure if it’s an American desire, or a human one, to oversimplify history as well as the present; but when utilized in journalism it has the power to ignore the voices who conflict the popular narrative. Those are the voices engaged journalism has the power to give the platform to have a voice.
Colorblindness and the ideologies that surround that mindset were never really combatted against or criticized by the media, but they were political tools to invoke emotion and racism from constituents. American political discourse, especially surrounding social change, constantly aspires progress, whether positive or negative. The stories that choose to be shared from the past often lack the intersectionality necessary to understand such complex social and political issues. The past is the key to shaping and understanding the future. If we paint the past in a simple light that gives us closure, we lack the storytelling necessary for a holistic path to the future.
Maintaining “full objectivity” is close to impossible when focusing on issues of racial injustice. The way facts are conveyed, the way the story is relayed, the way the author picks and chooses which pieces to incorporate into the story all skew its supposed “full objectivity,” and subjectivity inevitably works itself into the piece. The author’s truth is bound to come out in covering any issue as polarizing as racial injustice. Hall looks at how pieces of journalistic work over time have whitewashed and over-simplified the ongoing African American struggle for civil rights. The ways in which journalists have depicted aspects of the movement—Hall mentions the selectivity journalists often undergo when quoting lines from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches—make it seem much more contained and clean than it really was/is. She also stresses the fact that the majority of journalists only gave the movement full coverage and attention when they had a charismatic leader—a face to focus on, rather than just the idea of the movement itself. Journalists also began to romanticize and sensationalize the suffering that these protesting African Americans were going through during the movement. Journalists’ tendency to glorify and condense their focus often prevented them from writing honest, 100% objective pieces. However, the notion of objectivity is one they continued to claim. Soon, white journalists’ “objectivity” when it came to covering the Civil Rights Movement became a privileged way of looking at the issue.
ReplyDeleteSome might argue that in the throws of the Civil Rights Movement—during the ‘60s and ‘70s—black journalists wrote inherently activist pieces. This goes back to the critical race studies theory that any and all works written by a black writer, or any other person who is a member of a race or ethnicity that has faced immense prejudice, are inherently political. Believers of this theory would argue that to be a black writer is to directly defy and challenge the barriers surrounding one’s race—one’s entire existence. To a critical race theorist, any black writer—whether a journalist, a poet, a novelist, etc.—is writing activist pieces. It’s fairly easy to make this argument about pieces written by Ida B. Wells, who is more blatantly political through her works than others. Especially for a person who deals with prejudice and racism daily in most, if not all aspects of his or her life, achieving “full objectivity” with no central conscious guiding the piece is an incredibly difficult task.
I was struck by Logan’s point, that “all works written by a black writer...are inherently political.” In trying to guide my thoughts on this, I found this to be a poignant statement. In terms of advocacy/activist journalism, I think that I haven’t been giving it enough space as to how multifaceted it must be. The readings discuss journalistic activism from both black and white groups, and they illuminate the disparity between what is read, published, and put into political action. We’ve discussed truth-seeking and what the role of journalism is, but have not yet unpacked how affected readers are by the authors of journalism. So, the comment about the inherent political nature of any black speech is reminder, backed by the readings, of how readers sort their journalism into different, subjective categories.
ReplyDeleteMy view of the concepts of advocacy and activism journalism, at their most basic form, has not changed. However, seeing how much more work must be done by black authors and communities to be heard, yet how those pieces are much more quickly assumed to be advocacy pieces or dramatizing, speaks to the lack of objectivity in our current journalistic pursuits. Objectivity serves those who have the power to be objective and remove themselves from a scenario, who have the power to remain mainly unaffected. Objectivity serves those with the most power -- in the age of segregation, white men stood at the top of the objectivity pyramid, with black men considered to reside far below. One can be objective, perhaps, when one doesn’t have need to fight to be heard. And, this brings us back to the discussion of truth -- is there ever truly an objective story? Or do we just label the story that comes from the most commonly accepted source of power as the most objective one, the one least marred by untruthfulness?
These readings came together to prove the point that the black press was incredibly powerful during the Civil Rights movement. The press worked within black communities to inform and empower people, in a form of activist journalism, to start a widespread movement. In this case, activism journalism had a productive role in society along with a purpose. Mamie’s alerting of the press almost immediately after her son’s death was a bold move. She was able to use the press for good by using her son’s story to reflect so many similar deaths across the South and incite an uproar in communities. I was previously unaware that the famous Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat scene happened only 4 days after Emmett Tills’ death and that soon after that, African-American people refusing to leave segregated lunch counters. The catalyst to the beginning of the Civil Rights movement was press coverage — including black and white press coverage at the trial for the murder of Tills.
ReplyDeleteIn the time of a segregated press, the black press could empower the black community but the white press must convince the white community with facts and repetition of those facts (The Race Beat). Did the white press ever fully do its job? People still base beliefs on racial stereotypes today. Truth is constructed and comes from a variety of sources but the press plays a large role in some peoples’ day to day truths. I believe that still today the press, especially the press reaching upper class white people, has a responsibility to report on issues of race with facts, stories from real people, and an occasional positive lens. As long as the color blind narrative (discussed by Hull) still remains in use, the press has a responsibility to report on race in the way they find most moral.
Emmett Tills’ story is a relevant example regarding how death can be sensationalized to create a movement. The fact that he was a young boy murdered (somewhat) randomly echoes the narratives we hear around school shootings (not including the focus on race, of course) and acts as a warning in our work. The death of young people can be striking enough to start a movement because people feel deep sympathy and later, anger and confusion. Sensationalizing a death can also be immoral in the sense that disrespects the victim by leaving the memory of who the real person was behind and molding them into a character to best fit the movement.
At a time when the media constantly receives criticism, the powerful story of Emmett Till shows the good media attention can sometimes have. So far in this class, we have seen video cameras pushed into the faces of gun violence survivors and watched newscasters exploit children. Although we read about community journalism and studied what it means to hold the title of engaged journalist, we rarely encounter the positive side of publicity. According to ‘The Race Beats’ by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, “news shapes movements.” In the case of Emmett Till this idea holds true. From the Washington Post to Reader’s Digest to the Chicago Defender to Sweden’s Le Democrate to the Jackson Daily, coverage of Emmett Till’s murder inspired a call for change. Emmett Till’s story contained no unique qualities, far too many people of color are unjustly murdered over race. Nevertheless, the media attention largely inspired by Tiil’s mother, Mamie, and others brought to surface the issue of race, murder, and inequality that an American Audience could not deny. The “media circus” as described by Timothy Tison connected black Chicago with black Mississippi, and inspired movement in Europe. We normally think of activist journalism as inspiring others to act, but Emmett Till’s news coverage is an example of how journalists can modify a national (and international) dialogue for social change.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as ‘The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Movements of the Past’ by Jaquelyn Dowd Hall points out the issue of race in America still exists as a major difficulty. The idea brought up in the reading of color-blind conservatism as a blinder for inequality in America shows our unwillingness to come face-to-face with the issue of race. Furthermore, policies such as redlining, institutions such as prisons, and gaps such as wealth show the ways “the past weighs on the present.” Hopefully, in the future journalists can come together as they did in the case of Emmett Till to promote social change and activism.
What struck me most about Roberts’ and Klibanoff’s piece The Race Beat was the impact that black-run newspapers had on the communities they reported for, despite how short lived the publications themselves tended to be. Though the average lifespan of black-run newspapers was only nine years, they provided a venue for communities to become politically informed and, as a result, more politically engaged in their own communities. The role of the “race beat” provided black communities in America to have agency over information. No longer did reading the paper mean reading further racist portrayals. Instead, a national debate among black leaders arose and became a part of the American dialogue.
ReplyDeleteBlack-run newspapers afforded the African American community their first opportunity to have agency and control over the manner in which they were represented. Newspapers provided a “common stage” for African Americans to prioritize what they wanted to be covered and the way in which it would happen. They provided a platform for national discourse and increased political engagement in African American communities across the country. The continued segregation of the white and black run presses was indicative of the nation’s culture at the time, but did allow for black-run newspapers to operate on their own. If African American journalists had joined pre-existing papers run by white people, much of the content that was published in African American-run newspapers throughout the years would have likely been edited out.
It was not necessarily the content of each individual article published by African American journalists across the years that allowed for black-run newspapers to be so impactful. While this was important, African American journalism as a whole gave an entire population their first chance to represent themselves as they would like to be represented, without exterior editing or silencing. In doing so, it provided African Americans with a new form of agency as coverage was no longer limited to the white view of the world.
Emmett Till's case illuminates the unjust racial issues that still impact our country. The obvious murder and torture of the young boy was something that would not have gotten much attention had it not been for his family's persistence and the media coverage. Wright, Emmett's uncle, knew the sad truth of his nephew's demise and was surprised by the call for a trial, "He knew how remarkable it was that there would even be a trial and knew to a near certainty that the murderers would be found not guilty by a jury of white men," (Tyson 123). Emmett Till’s case shows how instrumental the media can be in terms of social change. Yes, the trial seemed lost before the jury was even selected due to strong racial prejudice. However, due to the coverage of his murder a trial had to be called. The media coverage did more than just get a trial for the murder of Emmet Till, it impacted the United States international relations as well, “Many believed America itself had killed Emmett Till. Its allies were concerned, its enemies gleeful,” (Tyson 189). The media allowed the public eye to be turn on the racial injustice that plagued America. This in turn lead to a trial, criticism from international allies, and a deep look at the brutal murder of a young boy. Although what happened to Emmett Till was not necessarily uncommon, his mother’s push to involve the media lead to coverage that shocked the nation.
ReplyDeleteWhile the media in Emmett Till’s case changed and broadcasted the response to his murder, there were still limitation on the media’s ability to be a catalyst to social change. In the Journal of American History, Hall explained how the medias coverage was selective, “The mass media, in turn, made the protest ‘one of the great news stories of the modern era,’ but they did so very selectively,” (Hall 1236). The language of journalists’ interest ‘waxing’ and ‘waning’ shows how even though the media has the potential to produce an immense amount of social change, they do so sparingly and only when it is beneficial to them. Activists’ had to play the part of charismatic and interesting to garner the media attention they desired to promote their cause. Although the media had the potential to cause change they did so selectively.
I want to discuss the issue of who objectivity serves. I could easily say that in almost all cases, objectivity serves the oppressor, but I do think there needs greater social context. I think what we saw during the civil rights movement was a society that was indubitably shaped by bigotry, racism, and discrimination.
ReplyDeleteAfrican Americans were seen merely as a thing and society, and as a result, their coverage was completely nonexistent. And since there was no other institution that was actively working to lift African Americans up, individuals, Myrdal specifically, saw that a breakthrough could only happen through the press. Myrdal's study found exactly that. There seemed to be a string connection between growing coverage of discrimination and a growing civil rights movement.
I think that just letting the idea of objectivity go unquestioned is probably not the best notion for an active citizen, let alone a journalist. Rather, something that is wholly accurate and provides fair and honest context— coverage of the Black experience in America in this case— should be the goal. Beyond the civil rights movements, the anti-war movement during Vietnam did not seem to change until the coverage of the war changed, showing the some of the atrocities that were occurring to our soldiers, but most importantly to the people and lands of Vietnam.
I think I want to close on the notion of activist journalism. I find that the term is incredibly misconstruing. In my opinion, Tells experiences and stories that are AS IMPORTANT as the ones that are told more often. It is the job of a good, engaged journalist to help find those stories. In today's world I think about issues that people who identify as transgender have to face. Most recently, the Supreme Court held up a ban of transgender individuals role in the military. Would I describe journalistic work— telling the stories and experiences, and truths of these individuals— as purely activist? I find that this should be deemed as solely the right work to do.
Sam Pfeifer
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