Synopses & Reviews
From an award-winning black journalist, a tough-minded look at the treatment of ethnic minorities both in newsrooms and in the reporting that comes out of them, within the changing media landscape.
From the Rodney King riots to the racial inequities of the new digital media, Amy Alexander has chronicled the biggest race and class stories of the modern era in American journalism. Beginning in the bare-knuckled newsrooms of 1980s San Francisco, her career spans a period of industry-wide economic collapse and tremendous national demographic changes.
Despite reporting in some of the country’s most diverse cities, including San Francisco, Boston, and Miami, Alexander consistently encountered a stubbornly white, male press corps and a surprising lack of news concerning the ethnic communities in these multicultural metropolises. Driven to shed light on the race and class struggles taking place in the United States, Alexander embarked on a rollercoaster career marked by cultural conflicts within newsrooms. Along the way, her identity as a black woman journalist changed dramatically, an evolution that coincided with sweeping changes in the media industry and the advent of the Internet.
Armed with census data and news-industry demographic research, Alexander explains how the so-called New Media is reenacting Old Media’s biases. She argues that the idea of newsroom diversity—at best an afterthought in good economic times—has all but fallen off the table as the industry fights for its economic life, a dynamic that will ultimately speed the demise of venerable news outlets. Moreover, for the shrinking number of journalists of color who currently work at big news organizations, the lingering ethos of having to be “twice as good” as their white counterparts continues; it is a reality that threatens to stifle another generation of practitioners from “non-traditional” backgrounds.
In this hard-hitting account, Alexander evaluates her own career in the context of the continually evolving story of America’s growing ethnic populations and the homogenous newsrooms producing our nation’s too often monochromatic coverage. This veteran journalist examines the major news stories that were entrenched in the great race debate of the past three decades, stories like those of Elián González, Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair, Tavis Smiley, the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, and the election of Barack Obama.
Uncovering Race offers sharp analysis of how race, gender, and class come to bear on newsrooms, and takes aim at mainstream media’s failure to successfully cover a browner, younger nation—a failure that Alexander argues is speeding news organizations’ demise faster than the Internet.
Synopsis
A Black Journalist's Story of Race, Media, and Reinvention A veteran reporter confronts her industry's refusal to represent and reflect a soon-to-be majority-minority nation From the Rodney King riots to the racial upheaval that gripped Boston's most prestigious newspaper in the late 1990s, the stories Amy Alexander chronicled were the biggest of American journalism's modern era. Begun in the bare-knuckled newsrooms of 1980s San Francisco, her career spans a period of industry-wide economic collapse and epic national demographic changes. Behind the bylines, Alexander confronted a familiar challenge to working women: balancing her career with marriage and family. Minority Opinion offers trenchant analysis of how race, gender, and class come to bear on newsrooms, and takes aim at mainstream media's failure to successfully cover a browner, younger nation--a failure that Alexander argues is speeding news organizations' demise faster than the Internet.
Synopsis
From an award-winning black journalist, a tough-minded look at the treatment of ethnic minorities both in newsrooms and in the reporting that comes out of them, within the changing media landscape.
Amy Alexander fell in love with journalism as a child in San Francisco during the tumultuous late 1960s. After landing her first reporting job at her hometown daily newspaper, she embarked on a rollercoaster journey marked by unexpected twists and turns through a minefield of cultural conflicts. Her career took her through newsrooms in Fresno, Miami, Boston, Minnesota, and Washington, DC. Along the way, her identity as a black woman journalist changed dramatically, an evolution that coincided with sweeping changes in the media industry wrought by demographics and the Internet. Uncovering Race offers trenchant analysis of how race, gender, and class come to bear on newsrooms, and takes aim at mainstream media's failure to successfully cover a browner, younger nation--a failure that Alexander argues is speeding news organizations' demise faster than the Internet.
About the Author
Amy Alexander is an award-winning content producer. The 2008 Alfred Knobler Fellow at The Nation Institute, she has been a staff writer at the San Francisco Examiner, Fresno Bee, and Miami Herald, and has been a contributing writer at the Nation, Boston Globe, and Washington Post. She was media columnist at Africana (later, AOL's BlackVoices) and has written for the Village Voice, Chicago Tribune, Black Issues Book Review, MSNBC.com, Salon, and The Root, among other publications. Alexander has also been a regular commentator on National Public Radio and was associate producer of NPR's Tell Me More, with Michel Martin.
Table of Contents
ContentsIntroduction
One San Francisco: A Race and Media Paradox
Two Fresno: Race and Class Coverage, the McClatchy Way
Three Miami: The Herald Tightrope
Four On the South Florida Rainbow Beat
Five Boston: Brahmins, Fabricators, and Changing Populations
Six Minnesota: Is “Well-Meaning” Good Enough?
Seven Washington, D.C.:Class and Color in the Eye of the Storm
Eight Postracial News Blues
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Index