Prejudice, Discrimination and Minority Presence in Today's News

As I started this project I thought that the topic was going to be relatively easy to track. But, as I went further and further along into the weeks I realized just how one sided the news or media is. Also it was very interesting to watch the daily events unfold, with the war still raging on, to the bombing in London. I also watched and polled our local news as well and found it to be in the same manner as the mass media. However I would not call it opposition but rather a lack of substance in our own communities as to the number of white versus the minorities in the news. But as you will see from my summation that it is indeed one sided whether planned or just that way.

I started with my 1st week on the fourth day into the week. I watched the updates on the Iraq war and all the numbers of people that die every day with the war. However I will not use opinions in this paper about the different themes until the end with my conclusion of the project as a whole. I remember the story of the “White” wife being kept alive for the sake of the fetus, As she was brain dead. The station I was watching was ABC. The next paper was the same night four of the first week, it was on NBC Nightly News. It covered the coincidental story of the Mississippi burning victims and the criminals responsible for their murders. Next was the CBS Evening News with mostly the same coverage as the other channels except it seemed to me that CBS covered more of the minority stories than any one else. All in all with the many stories in the news this summer with the girl in Aruba to the Race Based Medicines this was all of week one with four shows in this week it was a 98% white person count in the news.

The next week was week 2 for me on day 2 and day 7 of this week. It was more on the dead civil rights workers from the 1960’s to which the suspect James Kellen was convicted. In addition to this president bush meet with the leader of Vietnam over the nuclear decisions. Also more on the war in Iraq with more terrorism and bombings. There was also a story about a white boy scout lost in the mountains of Utah. Also a story of the white run away bride. Earthquakes on the west coast, and Dick Dublin apologized fro the harsh treatment in Quantanomo Bay; also there was coverage of life saving treatments for people with brain tumors. This was all of Week day 2 week 2. This is Week day 2 Day 7 with coverage of the war again, also a fourteen year old girl getting attacked by a shark and dieing. In addition to this news there was the usual seasonal news of the wild fires in California. The reverend Billy Graham gave his last sermon before his retirement. He was 86 years old. The Live eight concerts were going on in London. This is the conclusion of Week 2 Day 7. Also both of these days were on NBC Nightly News.

Week number 3 started out and ended on Day 6. I wanted to get more of a broadened range because of the one sidedness on the other three channels I was starting to get curious and so I added more to my Data Survey. Tonight I also watched CNBC with Tim Russert. The topic of his program was again and as the rest a predominately white sided issue of World class poker. Next I watched CNN, On the Story. Here there was more about the London bombings and a small spike of something new about Afghanistan’s forgotten war. Also there was a complete overview of the missing girl in Aruba. Now at this time I was starting to see the big picture of just how one sided the news media was so I also added some of our local channels as well into my Data. I watched WDAY channel 6 The Insider. It was a story about a white housewife whom was addicted to cosmetic surgeries. Not only was this one sided but a total waste of news time for most people from around here unless you are considering plastic surgery. Most of us in the north could care less let alone have a need. But I am sure some body got some use out of it! I noticed there weren’t any Minorities in this story at all. I even Watched Headline News on CNN just to see what the ratio was there and found it to be similar to the rest thus far. This concludes Week 3.

I am going to switch now from telling you about the types of programs and contents to my summation and statistical data as I feel I can better portray the point across. As I watched over these weeks I saw mostly White