Television news perpetuates unfair stereotypes of minorities

Thursday, November 5, 1998

Television news perpetuates unfair stereotypes of minorities

CRIME: Research shows media molds attitudes toward race,
welfare

By Brian Fishman

Daily Bruin Contributor

According to one UCLA professor, unfair racial stereotyping is
rampant in local newscasts.

Frank Gilliam, a political science professor, is researching the
public’s reaction to the media’s portrayal of welfare recipients
and so called "hero deputies" on local television newscasts.

"We look at the impact the news has on the way people come to
understand crime, racial stereotypes, politics, etc," Gilliam
said.

Gilliam, working with former UCLA professor Shanto Iyengar,
shows random subjects 10 to 15 minute video clips of news
broadcasts in which some of the broadcast relates to crime. He then
introduces variables.

Some broadcasts, for example, will label the perpetrator as
belonging to a particular racial group, while others do not mention
race.

Subjects are then quizzed about their feelings on crime and
race.

Gilliam ensures race is the only variable in his experiment by
using the same report and digitally altering the skin color of
various characters in the report.

And, though Gilliam’s current study is not yet complete, he has
come to preliminary conclusions about welfare and the "hero deputy"
phenomena.

"It’s clearly the case that people’s attitudes about welfare
abuse are much more negative when they see a black welfare queen,
by as much as 10 percent," Gilliam said.

Gilliam is also investigating the so-called hero-deputy
syndrome, showing subjects a newscast about a single deputy that
foiled an ATM robbery. He found that viewers were much more likely
to remember a white hero-deputy than a minority.

Gilliam’s former studies have also looked at bias in reporting
and found that reporters are more likely to suggest a crime was
"horrible" if the perpetrator was black.

But Bob Long, managing editor of KNBC news, asserted there are
measures in place to prevent bias.

"Editors insist on accuracy, balance, and attribution," he
said.

Guarding against bias is a general tenet of American journalism,
Long continued.

"Someone suspected of a crime is always presumed innocent until
judged guilty. That’s why we use words like ‘suspect’ and
‘alleged,’" he said.

But some minorities feel race is used too often in news reports
as a way to place blame.

"If you don’t put race in it, you can’t point the finger," said
Jennifer Knowles, a third-year physiological science student.

Additionally, the media exaggerates the amount of violent crime
in society, according to the study. While 30 percent of crime is
considered violent, Gilliam’s study found that 78 percent of crime
reported on television is violent.

Thus, viewers overestimate the amount of violent crime in
society, Gilliam said.

Gilliam claimed reporters do not give enough background on the
crimes they cover and therefore give the impression crime is often
random.

"Reporters need to contextualize their reports," he added.

Gilliam also found cases of significant bias in the media’s
portrayal of crime committed by different ethnic groups.

Gilliam’s study shows, "media coverage of white crime is
distinctly more nonviolent than violent, even though whites are
only slightly less likely to engage in violent rather than
nonviolent crime."

Conversely, media coverage of black crime portrayed it as 22
percent more violent than it is in reality.

"The news tends to exaggerate existing racial differences in
actual crime rates by disproportionately depicting blacks in the
role of violent perpetrators and whites as nonviolent
perpetrators," the study said.

Gilliam cited the need for more minorities in managerial
newsroom positions and scoffed at the prevalence of minority news
anchors.

"Please, those anchors are just newsreaders," he said.

Gilliam also blamed the audience, though, for contributing to
the media’s bias.

"The audience has the persona of a junkie," he said. "We say we
don’t like violence, but we watch anyway."

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