If journalism was ever meant to give ‘all’ people a voice, including the minority groups, then I’m sad to say that journalism has failed us terribly in the majority of times through out its short history.
After attending a ROAR (Rhodes Organisation for Animal Rights) meeting earlier this week, I came to think about the representation of minority groups in the media. ROAR is a student society with activists that campaign for animal rights, a society one would expect to flourish anywhere in civil society where people have respect for living matter (like love their pets, and assuming from there on other (living) animals too). Instead the reality is much more gloomy, with a general ignorance from the journalism world towards these minority groups – seldom mentioning them, and making them of as ‘radicals’ and extremist when they do… even turning them into jokes.
I like to think that students (all over the world) shape the ideas of the world (the Anti-Vietnam war protest led by students in the 60’s/70’s being one of a million examples), and if so few students are aware of these matters, how much fewer people in the everyday public know about all these matters? I know animal rights is a controversial topic, but it should still be mentioned – just like other controversial issues in the news. How can anything change if no one draws attention to the issues at hand?!
One could argue that it has to do with behind the scenes politics in a newsroom and the rest of the world, like what effects a story on animal rights might have for both the meat/leather/science (testing on animals) companies as well as for the news company, and in whose interest stories are written.
One could perhaps even look at the economical impact such a story might have on the paper planning to publish it, especially since journalism mostly sells majority news to majority groups, and therefore feature news in the interest of the majority groups!
Even bias’ of the reporters of a newsroom can be brought under the lens, assuming that the average reporter represents a part of the general public.
None the less, these should not be excuses to ignore minorities. Sadly commercial journalism (which makes up a hell lot of journalism) does exactly the opposite of what so many like to think it does, to protect and inform “the people”. Only once everyone has an equal say, including minority group, will journalism truly serve the public.
[A thought for journ-students: Blogging supposedly offers minority groups an “equal” change to raise their voices; but keep in mind that paper and ‘big’/famous news blogs have readerships of hundreds and thousands and thousands of readers, while blogs have much fewer – many a times good and ‘successful’ blogs on a good day only have a few hundred or one or two thousand hits – nothing compared to that of bigger publications. So ask yourself, is blogging really all that wonderful, and is it really the way of the future? It does have advantages too, and some will be discussed in future articles, but this above fact should still be considered.]
After attending a ROAR (Rhodes Organisation for Animal Rights) meeting earlier this week, I came to think about the representation of minority groups in the media. ROAR is a student society with activists that campaign for animal rights, a society one would expect to flourish anywhere in civil society where people have respect for living matter (like love their pets, and assuming from there on other (living) animals too). Instead the reality is much more gloomy, with a general ignorance from the journalism world towards these minority groups – seldom mentioning them, and making them of as ‘radicals’ and extremist when they do… even turning them into jokes.
I like to think that students (all over the world) shape the ideas of the world (the Anti-Vietnam war protest led by students in the 60’s/70’s being one of a million examples), and if so few students are aware of these matters, how much fewer people in the everyday public know about all these matters? I know animal rights is a controversial topic, but it should still be mentioned – just like other controversial issues in the news. How can anything change if no one draws attention to the issues at hand?!
One could argue that it has to do with behind the scenes politics in a newsroom and the rest of the world, like what effects a story on animal rights might have for both the meat/leather/science (testing on animals) companies as well as for the news company, and in whose interest stories are written.
One could perhaps even look at the economical impact such a story might have on the paper planning to publish it, especially since journalism mostly sells majority news to majority groups, and therefore feature news in the interest of the majority groups!
Even bias’ of the reporters of a newsroom can be brought under the lens, assuming that the average reporter represents a part of the general public.
None the less, these should not be excuses to ignore minorities. Sadly commercial journalism (which makes up a hell lot of journalism) does exactly the opposite of what so many like to think it does, to protect and inform “the people”. Only once everyone has an equal say, including minority group, will journalism truly serve the public.
[A thought for journ-students: Blogging supposedly offers minority groups an “equal” change to raise their voices; but keep in mind that paper and ‘big’/famous news blogs have readerships of hundreds and thousands and thousands of readers, while blogs have much fewer – many a times good and ‘successful’ blogs on a good day only have a few hundred or one or two thousand hits – nothing compared to that of bigger publications. So ask yourself, is blogging really all that wonderful, and is it really the way of the future? It does have advantages too, and some will be discussed in future articles, but this above fact should still be considered.]
*AllStars*
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