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Coverage of fight at conference employs negative stereotypes
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By Mike Cuenca | February 21, 2001
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The most disturbing aspect of your coverage of the recent Big 12 Black
Student Government Conference ("Fight fails to derail minority
conference," Monday) was that one of the most basic elements of sound
journalism — "why?" — was missing from the article. This is crucial
because that element is what ultimately would determine whether the
fight was newsworthy.
If the fight was between two men about a woman, for example, then who
cares about the fight? Thatīs an unfortunate reality of human nature,
and it likely happens several times a night in this town on any given
weekend. It has only minor bearing on the story of a student government
conference.
If, however, the fight broke out because of the politics of student government, then thatīs a whole other story. Thatīs news.
If the fight was instigated by students — White or Black — who came to disrupt the conference, that would be newsworthy.
In fact, if the fight was a minor fracas over some unrelated issue,
then the story becomes: "Why did the campus police decide to shut down
the event entirely instead of merely taking away those involved?"
Perhaps the fight was newsworthy. But readers were given no information
about why the fight broke out. Without it, none of us — not even those
who supposedly teach sound journalism — can assess the newsworthiness
of that aspect of the story. Without it, the story became just another
negative stereotype of minority people being inherently violent.
"Why" was that possible distortion so easy for the Kansan to accept
without further investigation and "why" was that not made an issue by
the journalism teachers who later were asked and quoted about the
story? The answer, unfortunately, is because the racism and
discrimination in our society are deeply ingrained in and perpetuated
by our media today. The perpetuation of negative stereotypes continues
because mainstream journalists and journalism educators continue to
accept and/or ignore the fallacies of the mediaīs unfair and
unrealistic representations of minorities in the "news."
You all just accepted the violence at the conference as if it were an
expected occurrence, rather than questioning "why" there was violence
at the conference.
Unfortunately, thatīs nothing new.
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Originally published by the University Daily Kansan.
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