MediaWatch: November 1993
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: November 1993
- Media Foundations Give Generously to Liberal Groups in the Bush Era
- NewsBites: Time Off Course
- Revolving Door:"Conservative" Advised Bill
- Reporters Knock GOP Campaigns, Puff Liberal Chances
- "Images Exact A Price"
- Adding Up Bush's Bills
- Local, NBC Reporters Involved
- Janet Cooke Award: CNN's Brooks Jackson Denounces RNC Ad On Clinton Plan as "Misleading" and "Wrong"
"Images Exact A Price"
The Quota Cure?
Prompted by NBC Nightly News Executive Producer Jeff Gralnick's comment that Somali warlord Mohammed Aidid was viewed as an "educated jungle bunny," CBS reporter Jacqueline Adams explored how blacks are unfairly portrayed in the media. In the October 19 Evening News piece, Adams said: "Many black journalists know that pictures can be as damaging as words...Whether it's Ted Danson in blackface at a celebrity roast in New York, Haiti, or the inner city, images exact a price."
Adams said the cure for these negative images is more quota hiring. "Some media watchers blame the lack of minorities in the nation's newsrooms. Although a quarter of this nation is now black, brown or yellow, recent surveys have found that newsrooms are not." The only talking heads in the piece, Jesse Jackson, National Association of Black Journalists President Dorothy Gilliam, and professor Joe Foote all agreed. The lineup showed Adams' lack of interest in diversity in one area: opinions.
But making racial diversity the number one priority in hiring decisions is already a common policy. In the November American Journalism Review, Alicia C. Shepard quoted news executives touting their plans to discriminate against whites: "Last spring, Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau Chief Jack Nelson was asked by a female reporter why there weren't more women and minorities in the bureau. `What he said -- and I'm paraphrasing -- is we don't want to bring any more white males into the bureau,' says one staffer who attended the meeting. A white male reporter challenged Nelson: `Do you mean it's a rule that no more white males will be in the bureau?' `That's right.' Nelson replied." Nelson later told Shepard "We really didn't have, in my opinion, room to bring in more white males until we did more for minorities and women."
New York Times Executive Editor Max Frankel noted that when he assumed his position in 1986 "One of the first things I did was stop the hiring of non-blacks and set up an unofficial little quota system." And Newsday Assistant Managing Editor David Hamilton boasted "Given an equal choice, we'll tilt toward the minority to address ills that have built up over the course of a century."
