Madison Linville
ML995316@ohio.edu
There are certain advertisements that just stick in your head for years. Some of these ads spark good memories of brands that are always your go-to brands in the store. On the other hand, another advertisement may have offended you, and affected the way that you viewed that brand, causing you to not want to purchase from them again. That's like this image above.
This was one example of an offensive, racist advertisement. It was from Dove, which featured a black woman taking off a shirt, revealing a white woman. It caused a big boycott to happen because people were not happy about the context of the advertisement.
Another big example that I found, of a racist advertisement, was from the company Intel, whose add depicted an image where there were six muscular, black runners bowing down to a singular white runner who was standing up above them. A picture of this article can be found here. These are the types of advertisements that the media and journalists are responsible for avoiding. We need to end stereotypes.
News coverage reinforces stereotypes. There are lots of times where it's evident that we forget that black people are also fathers, lawyers, doctors, etc. Research supports the fact that as African Americans are continually associated with poverty and crime in the news, the color line is emphasized.
One way to stop these color lines from occurring is to have a diverse staff in the newsroom. It's important because a diverse staff means a diverse group of backgrounds, which translates to more people being able to report on a wider range of stories. It also relates to the quality of journalism. White people should be able to cover race too, not just black people. That goes along with diversity.
During the readings, it mentioned that another big thing to look out for, regarding diversity in reporting, is how we frame tragedies in the world. Too many times, we see reports about a Muslim, for example, committing a mass murder, and it's referred to as "terrorism", but when a white man does it, it's more referred to as a "tragedy" or other word that enlightens it a little. We, as journalists, need to be consistent in how we are reporting on these topics and be consistent between races to avoid stereotypes.
Journalists should also try to avoid using the word "racist" or "racism" when covering public figures or events. There was an incident where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Trump's tweet racist, and there was a long string of backlash on her accusing him of being "racist". You can read about the incident more here. A quote about this topic that I felt sums it up best was a comment from John Daniszewski, the Associated Press's editor at large for standards, and he told CJR, "We’re very cautious about throwing around accusations of our own that characterize something as being racist. We would try to say what was done, and allow the reader to make their own judgement".
As journalists, it is our responsibility to end stereotypes in the news and media. We need to start that movement, so that our audience members can follow in the right footsteps. We need a diverse media to succeed as a society.
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