Bias in the news but not the newsroom

By Ashley Campbell

What do you do when you wake up? Take a shower, iron your clothes, or eat breakfast?

Many students and parents turn on the television, probably while they are doing all of the above! Normally, people turn on the TV to watch some news station like Fox 6. Many do this to find out what the temperature is, what the day is going to be like, or to get the latest news.

While touring through Fox 6 news station, many things were brought to my attention. Being able to sit in on a meeting was a great experience. They have all the stories and story titles/slugs on a big computer monitor. With this, they go through a run-down of everything that will be aired from morning to night.

Ted Perry, a well-known newscaster, allowed the shadowing visit to occur. Perry showed me the studio and introduced everyone in the station. The anchormen and women were very kind, outgoing and helpful. The entire shadowing experience took place because a question asked at last year’s Pebbles of Peace seminar. Perry said that I asked a very wise question that he could not give a full answer to. The question that was asked was, “Why are blacks and other minorities always displayed as negative, violent criminals?”

Junior Christian Massey, had his own answer to this question. “I think that many news stations and the rest of the media portray blacks as bad and violent people. They normally say blacks in Milwaukee are the worst. I just don’t agree with people who have never visited Milwaukee and walked in our shoes.”

When I visited the studio over spring break he answered my question. Perry stated, “For every story we ask ourselves a question. That question is, is race or ethnicity a factor in this story? Why or why not? Should it be?”

This is a great question to ask. Sometimes race is needed in story coverage. One case he mentioned was that,
“If a phone company was ripping off all minorities, then race should be involved in this story. But if a person killed someone and the killer was a minority, we would not need to speak of his or her race unless police officers were still looking for them and viewers need a description to help catch them.”

Senior Velved Stevenson stated, “I think this is not completely true. At times newscasters will put a mans race on he air even if they aren’t looking for them.”

While being shown around, Beverly Taylor, an anchorwoman that I encountered is the co-host of Ted Perry at the 5:00pm show. She is of the African American descent and one thing that she likes mainly about Fox 6 is because it has a mixed and diverse newsroom.

Taylor also stated, “Sometimes when doing a story, many reporters are like let’s get the story, interview a few people and let’s go. But since I think differently, I pause myself and say, can I get a black psychologist or a Latino doctor to be interviewed instead of using the same person? Sometimes I would make sure I interviewed one black, one Latino, and other races just so I can get a little color in my story and to appeal to a different audience. I want to show viewers that minorities can be respectable individuals also.”

This stuck out because when young teenagers watch the news, mainly what they see is that a minority robbed eight people or shot 12 guys for some unnecessary reason. That image sticks in teen’s heads and that is the behavior that they most likely follow.

If a young person is shown a positive role model of their same race then the image of success will get implanted in their minds. They will believe that they do not have to be another stereotype or another person on the 5:00 news that just got killed.

By asking the question about minorities in the news, a new understanding of the news and the media was brought to the light. So, ask questions and more than likely, someone will answer them!