Over two dozen “experts”. Forgive my use of quotes here, because I don’t see how these people are qualified to answer a question about journalism and the coverage of race any more than one of us on the blogs is. I have no doubt they are very smart people given the university pedigrees that they have in law, anthropology, sociology, etc. But a bunch of professors who may or may not have ever written anything while in a job devoid of most reality based job experiences is hardly the crowd I would be asking about race coverage.

I’m not so sure what was asked and what was answered were the same thing anyway.

If you want my opinion, for what it’s worth, the press needs to start reporting the facts of the matter, regardless of what those facts are, and let the reader draw their own conclusions. Even the simplest of stories have personal agenda injected into it by the writer. Journalists need to get back to reporting, not giving opinions. Stop trying to mold the story into a politically correct mantra.

By the way, it appears the original journalist took the opportunity to ask a question about race coverage to the assembled “experts”. I’m not sure how that became “yielded a discussion” as you described.

here is what one of the commentators said to the original article:
Posted by jan Shaw 5/5/2009 4:22:11 PM

“and the next question is, how do you get around the biases of the educators? jan”

Also, what does this imply?:
We should expect it to be troublesome. But if we ignore it, they warn, we paint over the realities of American experience and join in the process of “whitewashing” our collective story.

Race is just one of many potentially sensitive ancilliary subjects to a primary story that the media tends to focus on so as to stir up controversy and sell more product. Religion and sexual orientation are other areas that often have nothing to do with the main story and would otherwise be ignored except for the fact that mentioning these red button topics causes controversy and therefore makes more money. In many cases, the media doesn’t report stories, it makes stories.

Darryl,

The media could do a much better job of covering race once journalist start acting like skeptical watchdogs instead of activist. The press needs to be objective not seek to remedy real or imagined injustices.

Affirmative action is clearly about racial preferences. You can use all of the double talk you want, but this is a clear. Preferences by any other name are preferences. The press automatically considers any unequal distribution of results as evidence of discrimination. The systematic bias of the press is so bad that a honest dialog on race is not even possible.

I really don’t blame the writers at the papers around the country.
I blame the university that these people attend. They Program the students, they fill their heads with mush. Most of the professors are commies or card caring socialist. You can’t rid society of them because they have tenure. It’s really akin to affirmative action.
That’s just my two cents worth.

i think the media in this country does a poor job covering race, and just about any other topic. less than 2% of the people in this country make $250,000 dollars or more. they control everything. the other 98% make less and do not control anything. and what’s more, this 98% really has a lot more in common then they think. i think the 2% is terrified that this 98% will realize this and uses the two-party system and media to drive a wedge between them. the conservative media fills peoples heads with idiotic ideas that we need to fear black men, gay people, and immigrants. the “liberal” media ( i use quotes because i am liberal and they pretend they are)foolishly paints anyone who disagrees as uneducated rednecks or religious zealots. the media provokes, angers, and alienates instead of trying to unite. i have seen kurt do this on this very blog. i have had several disagreements with people on this blog, but have never insulted, or been insulted. this has led to several eye-opening conversations with tim, hs, ftpd, the gov, and many others. we disagree, but do not alienate. this is where the media fails this country on race and any other issue. instead of trying to see other’s points of views and listen, they concern themselves with keeping that 98% (which i assume is most of us on this blog) at each other’s throats. lets divide people on race, abortion, homosexuality, and religion and use these issues as a smoke screen to keep people from voting for their best economic interests. i hope i am alive to see the 98% wake up.

How can you best cover it?

Simple: Just cover it.

Example: Jamie Foxx proved his racism last month with disparaging comments about Miley Cyrus. Nothing was published in the Post Dispatch or most mainstream media.

The fact is you will never cover racism the way it should until you change your newsroom culture. You choose what you want readers to see and most of the time, what you publish fits your personal and collective political agenda.

With that, you’ve already defeated what you can’t solve in your original question.

How come local media only covers racial issues in the city? The only race problems I see are in the county. The city is integrated and the county is most definitely not. I hear the comments all of the time where I live and I am well west of 270. I am tired of hearing the same garbage about the same permenent protesters in the city. I wish the local press would cover the real racism that is out in the open all over St. Louis County and St. Charles.

“How can media better cover race?”
Simple. When the ethnic heritage is of significance to any given story, ie St Patrick’s Day, St Nicholas Greek Festival, Oktober-Fest, etc. then cover it as an “ethnic” story.

When it is “man-bites-dog”, then ethnicity is not necessarily involved.

When the story is Parents proud of their child who earned (PhD at Cambridge, Eagle Scout, sacrificed their life saving others, etc.) ethnicity is not involved, but parental pride is.

Dear “County Res”-
As a born and raised city resident, please go on. I do love the county- especially Crestwood and Kirkwood and spend some time there. What type of experiences do you encounter? I am not being ignorant, i just spend most of my time in the city and would like to hear other experiences outside the city limits. I believe its always good to hear different views of the same topic. Unfortunately, you are right, i only “hear” a lot of city news like so many others, no so much county news. Do parts of the county have their own paper?