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Media:
Even Worse Than You Thought

“Coloring the News” pulls back the curtain


 

Coloring the News Newspaper editors who wonder why their readership is diminishing should read “Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism” (copyright 2001, Encounter Books). William McGowan's recent media critique recounts the press' strange detour into advocacy journalism that is less attentive to standards of accuracy than it is to a supportive view of certain groups. Hint: average Americans are not represented in those newly favored demographics.

McGowan agrees with the idea that a wider diversity of views in the newsroom would be a good thing, but his research indicates that the quota-based diversity of skin hues and ethnicities has actually reduced free speech and chilled the forum of competing ideas. Radical journalists have even challenged objectivity as a cultural artifact of the white power structure.

Some of the newsroom policies to implement the new journalism are mind boggling in terms of Stalinist thought control. At USA Today, the practice of always having a photo of a minority person above the front-page fold was expanded in 1993 with a policy called “mainstreaming” designed to include the views of ethnic persons in every story. The paper's Diversity Committee analyzed each article for the number of minorities quoted, and the score for each reporter was part of that writer¹s evaluation. In 1997, USA Today scaled back by keeping the scorecards but no longer used them in assessing journalists.

In a similar instance, the 90 papers in the Gannett chain promoted the “All American Contest” in which promotions and other financial rewards were given to editors who successfully increased newsroom diversity and sensitivity to coverage of minority issues. After all, the tone had been set by influential New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who repeatedly stated that diversity was the “single most important issue” facing the Times.

The book is divided into chapters based on those topics now favored with special treatment by diversity journalism: gay and feminist issues, race, affirmative action and immigration. Each receives thorough examination with plenty of examples. The immigration chapter is nearly 40 pages long and will confirm many of your worst suspicions about how the issue is considered today.

Immigration is indeed celebrated uncritically in the newsroom. Objections to open borders based on factual observation and statistics are dismissed by editors out of hand as nativist rantings. The multicultural paradigm has been accepted with no question: the previous ideal of the Progressive era, that newcomers would assimilate into the larger American society has disappeared from memory. Instead of joining with their American neighbors, immigrants are encouraged by the media to remain in balkanized communities with hyphenated identities.

In one stellar example of celebrating diversity (and rejecting harmony), the New York Times suggested in 1998 that assimilation was a racist concept. Such over-the-top declarations are reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's description of “radical chic” in the 1960s, when Leonard Bernstein famously entertained a group of Black Panther radicals along with his elite friends in his luxurious New York apartment in order that the Beautiful People could make common cause with The Oppressed.

The recent history is that the press has been the unapologetic cheerleader for policies that increase social fragmentation, although the argument is always framed in terms of preserving cultural diversity. From bilingual education (which should more accurately be called non-English instruction) to taxpayer-subsidized benefits for illegals aliens (California's Proposition 187), the press has thrown objectivity out the window in order to lobby for a more uniform multicultural social order. When the readers vote for a different kind of community, journalists retreat into their elite mindset and harden the belief that they are right and noble. The press further assumes that the general public must be filled with unenlightened racists to hold such views. No wonder the disconnect between the mainstream press and the reading public is growing wider.

Sadly, the remaining critical editors and writers appear cowed into submission. Many of the journalists consulted for the book did not wish to be named. At the Los Angeles Times, numerous experienced writers grabbed the opportunity of early retirement when it was offered. In one case, a Vermont journalist was fired because he reported an instance of reverse racism in which a white woman was ejected from a minority forum for requesting an opportunity to speak. Throughout the book, the pervading newsroom atmosphere is one of fear and repression. The reader is left with generic human interest stories about immigrant families struggling to find a better life, rather than factual analysis about the demographic tidal wave.

Unfortunately, “Coloring the News” appears to have been eclipsed by the best-selling “Bias,” another media critique. “Bias” struck a chord in the public and is written with a mass audience in mind, with a conversational tone plus some juicy stories about Dan Rather that have contributed to its appeal. (We learn that he is called “the Dan” on the set, for example.) “Coloring the News” is more detailed and rewards the serious reader with much usable information as well as psychological insight into newsroom orthodoxy.

You can read the preface on the book's thorough website and an excerpt printed in The Social Contract here.

— by Brenda Walker
 

 
FURTHER READING:

Covering Terrorism
Author William McGowan considers the quality of post-911 media coverage. Writing in the National Review, he notes how many years of media cheerleading for open borders poorly prepared the nation for an attack from a handful of immigrants welcomed with a naive lack of caution.

Read Webzines, Not Mainstream Treezines, for the Truth on Immigration
California columnist Joe Guzzardi analyzes the mainstream media for its coverage of the most pressing domestic problem facing the nation, and finds politically correct articles reflecting the viewpoint of immigration lawyers, the business community and open-borders libertarians.

A Book Unfit for 'The New York Times'
Village Voice writer Nat Hentoff defends 'Coloring the News' as uncovering a liberal conformity in newsrooms, saying "That diversity goal misfires when it leads to identity politics masquerading as reliable journalism."

Report from the Media Standards Project
Joe Guzzardi lays out his conclusions from investigating how the media covers immigration (with nearly 2000 articles studied), from analyzing the assumptions most reporters bring to the subject to how coverage has changed since September 11 (not much). The upshot is that basic standards of fairness and balance are not followed, and the pro-mass-immigration view prevails in spite of enormous evidence showing immigration's damage to the social fabric and natural resources.

Center for Immigration Studies Media Critique Panel
William McGowan is a speaker, along with Joe Guzzardi, media standards investigator from NumbersUSA in this transcript examining how really bad the media is when it covers immigration — sentimental, unbalanced and biased. Joe Guzzardi described how he examined the ethical standards by which journalists are supposed to abide and confronted journalists with their obvious lapses when covering immigration. Yep, they mostly admitted that they had goofed, but weren't willing to do anything to reddress the situation or change their lazy ways.

Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
Read about the high ideals of the profession, such as how "journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other." Noble stuff, really — too bad it has nothing to do with reality.

Committee of Concerned Journalists: Citizens Bill of Journalism Rights
More lofty ideals from the scribblers. Apparently citizens should expect truthfulness from journalists, as well as "news that is proportional and relevant."

Post-Sept. 11 'Backlash' Proves Difficult to Quantify
This article in the New Jersey Law Journal examines how the hysterical media reports of violence against Arabs were highly overstated. Reporting 10 months after September 11, the writer states, "the official numbers tell a less alarming story. While there certainly was a hike in such bias claims since September, it's hard to say that the increase was serious or even statistically significant."

Muslim 'backlash' exagerated - November 2002
Another spate of anti-Muslim backlash stories are analyzed with little substance to be found. In short, another media firestorm stoked by endless complaints from Arab-Muslim organizations like the Community for American-Islamic Relations.

Booknotes Transcript: How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
Recovering liberals, do your friends think you have gone over to the Dark Side? Writer Harry Stein describes his evolution away from the tiresome political correctness that the left has embraced and into a more "commonsensical" view. Along the way, there is considerable discussion about the "shared assumptions" held by most in the media.

How the Press Ignored the Hart-Rudman Report
The Columbia Journalism Review analyzes how it was that a report on the danger of terrorism, prepared by two highly respected ex-senators, was completely overlooked by the media. In 1999, Sen. Gary Hart and Sen. Warren Rudman published a study that warned, "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers" from a terrorist attack. But the press simply couldn't be bothered. The Hart-Rudman Report is available online.

French author on trial over Islam "insult"
Obviously the state of free speech in France is in a terrible state. French novelist Michel Houellebecq has been sued by four Paris Islamic organizations for making insulting remarks about the religion during an interview about his novel, saying "the dumbest religion, after all, is Islam."

2002 Eugene Katz Award: August Gribbin
By way of comparison, here is a selection of articles showing how intelligent and balanced immigration stories can be written, with important facts and statistics interwoven to demonstrate the impact to America of ongoing massive immigration.

Style Guide To Writing A Sensitive Immigrant Story
Brenda Walker examines the journalistic boilerplate of illegal immigrant as victim.

Postscript 9/11: Media Coverage of Terrorism and Immigration
Writer William McGowan does his usual thorough job here, examining the many difficulties the media has had in explaining terrorism. He remarks, "Although 9/11 was first and foremost a failure of law enforcement, intelligence, and immigration procedures, the journalistic establishment also bears some responsibility for the disarmed condition in which we found ourselves on September 11."

How and Why Journalists Avoid the Population ­ Environment Connection
This excellent piece of research definitely parallels the problems the press has in reporting immigration. Author T. Michael Maher notes, "Recent surveys show that Americans are less concerned about population than they were 25 years ago, and they aren't connecting environmental degradation to population growth."

I Was a Tool of Satan
Edgy cartoonist Doug Marlette describes his adventures with defending free speech against today's censors, who often use victimhood to appeal to ideas of tolerance and non-offensiveness:
    "Presumably, victimization was one of their motives for leaving their native countries, yet the subtext of many of their letters was that this country should be more like the ones they emigrated from. They had the American know-how without the know-why. In the name of tolerance, in the name of their peaceful God, they threatened violence against someone they accused of falsely accusing them of violence."
    After publishing an infamous cartoon "What would Mohammed drive?" Marlette's newspaper received more than 20,000 emails demanding an apology for defaming the Prophet's peaceful nature. The outpouring of invective and death threats were due to an exhortation for media intimidation from the professional Islamic whiners and terror-enablers at the Council for American Islamic Relations.