About Us 2

Perception is reality. How we are viewed and what is said about us matters. It is abundantly clear that here in Arkansas, we as African-Americans don't control much, if any, statewide media groups. Need proof?  On any given day, COUNT the number of positive stories reported by print and television stations about African-Americans in Arkansas. You probably won't use all the fingers on one hand. Of course you can't include sports stories. Those are off limits. But, we'll get to that in another article.

On October 6, 2021, I watched the primary news and weather anchors from ABC, Channel 7 in Little Rock issue public apologies for their roles in a September 16, 2021 newscast. This newscast  featured the weatherman wearing an Afro and talking about the 70's and disco. The weatherman was white. The Afro was black. You get the message. Channel 7 is  a Sinclair owned media company. Sinclair is one of the most conservative media groups in the United States. In their news reporting, they often cast African-Americans in a negative light. They offer no excuses. It's just another instance of "implicit bias." This is a part of who they are and they believe that we are powerless to change it. Are we? 

More than three years ago I read an article from the Washington Post "Called Media Distortion of Black Families. It was written by Nicole Rodgers and Rashad Robinson. Robinson is a black male, and coincidently, Rodgers is a white female writing about black people and media imagery.   Though it was an honest assessment of Black family portrayals by white owned media groups, there is a 99 percent chance that the article was approved for publication by a white male or female editor. As black consumers of the news, "that's the part we miss." The bottom line is not the news anchor or field reporter, it's the white editor that decides how Jamaal, William, Kenyatta, Luther, Kenya, or Lawanda will be written about, presented, or portrayed in the local paper and, on the nightly newscast.  

The article stated "that news and opinion media warp public perceptions of gender and race by reinforcing myths and stereotypes about women and people of color."  Some specifics from the article included a study from the University of Illinois that concluded that at best  media outlets (a) promoted racially biased portrayals and myths that pathologize black families and idealize white families with respect to poverty and crime (b) play a dangerous role in spreading debunked stereotypes about black families and (c) at worst,  amplify those inaccurate depictions for political and financial gain. We've all seen that type of behavior before. 

When the media outlets examined in the study reported stories about poor families, they chose to feature black families in their coverage 59 percent of the time, even though only 27 percent of families living below the poverty line are black. Similarly, in coverage of welfare, 60 percent of families portrayed were black, even though only 42 percent of families receiving welfare are black. This pattern was widespread across numerous sources. Among the worst offenders for networks were Fox News and CNN, and the New York Times and Breitbart for national print and online news organizations. What about our local stations? How about the depictions of black overall life in Arkansas as reported by the ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliated TV stations. 

The somewhat lengthy article is also critical of the news media for habitually reinforcing the myth that black fathers are less involved in their children's lives. Photos and videos in the aforementioned study depicted black mothers, white mothers and white fathers interacting with their children at the same rate. Black fathers, however, were shown with their children half as often, and the news media regularly perpetuated the conventional wisdom that missing black fathers explain social inequity.  

The same article quoted CDC stats that reaffirm what we already knew; that black children are disproportionately born to single mothers. But it also quoted a CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) study that showed black fathers spend more time engaged in parenting than fathers of other races, participating more often in bathing, diapering, taking their kids to activities, and helping them with their homework. Yet media outlets continue to reinforce the idea that black families are sources of personal, cultural and societal instability; that responsibility for poverty and crime lies with them rather than with those who shape the economic and social environment they live in. At the same time, the news media promotes white families as the model norm, a source of social stability. 

Finally, the article addresses the real-life consequences of the continued distortion of black life by the media. "When the news media constantly associates black people with crime, it increases racial stereotypes among viewers, leading the public including liberal and conservative Arkansan's to disproportionately favor punitive criminal justice policies. As a collateral damage piece, when the poor are depicted as overwhelmingly black, it leads the public to support heavier restrictions on welfare because of a perception that undeserving black people benefit from it. Backers of corporate and right-wing policies gain when the news media blames black families for social conditions, while their own role in destabilizing society remains invisible. 

This online publication exists to counter the narrative that constantly depicts African-Americans as "less than." It exists to balance the negative view of African-American life that is constantly depicted in the local News and Information outlets in this state.  We are so much more than the lip-service paid to us by those that control the news cycle. It's not about the reporting of the news, it's about the process of manufacturing the news. There is a saying that goes something like this. "If you control the messenger, then you control the message. Let's take some of that control back. As African-Americans in Arkansas, let's create our own narratives. Most importantly, let's report and talk about the real issues.................. with our own voices, and our own opinions.