Sodhi1

Sonya Sodhi

Professor Zumstein

English 114B

25 February 2017

Starts With a Story Ends With the Medias Lack of Integrity

Sherman Alexies text, Breaking and Entering, tells the story of George

Wilson, a man who used self-defense to ward off an intruder, but unintentionally

kills the thief in the process. This tragedy goes beyond a robbery as race plays a

definitive role in the story and how the media frames the details of newsworthy

events. The nature in which media outlets portray stories has an affect on how

viewers perceive an event, along with how it can alter the lives of the individuals

involved. With the objective being to attract viewership and have people discuss

trending issues in the streets, it is no wonder news executives can continue to

impact stories being reported to the extent of creating nationwide animosity

amongst cultures and communities.

In Alexies piece, the media targets a Native American man whom

appears to look white, while casting the mother of the deceased black robber in a

sympathetic manner. The news is supporting a dominant theme of racism as a

monetization strategy rather than news important to report. Instead of caring only

about getting a story to broadcast, it would be more beneficial to assist the region

where racial crimes are happening and try to have leaders in the community

show people how to eradicate violence. The distribution of geared racist content
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has caused a lot of backlash in areas where the black lives matter movement has

been prominent. A major contribution for newsworthiness is the ability to spin the

news to make it interesting by imposing a racist element to capture audience

attention.

Racism has been an epidemic throughout television history as in the

Ruby Clark v. ABC lawsuit, in which a black woman made the allegation that she

had been defamed because the juxtaposition of video and narration of the story

had characterized her as a prostitute, (Grimes, 1990, cited in Abraham and

Appiah, 2006, p. 188). News stories focused on racial tension can have

underlying biases, and being able to frame a stressful event and transform it into

their ideal narrative can have dramatic effects.

Throughout Alexies article, Wilson is talked about as having little racist

beliefs, except for the fact he lives in a black neighborhood and he heard news

that black teenagers were robbing houses. Hearing a statement of that

magnitude can draw a foregone conclusion in the viewers brain, constituting the

person to associate black teenagers as delinquents. Whether or not the media is

intending to victimize a person or a group of people purposely, it will still occur

when the news constructs a story in a way not intended for receiving by the

audience. The news decides how they want a story to air and what angle to take

with it. Bernard Cohens notable definition of agenda setting is it may not be

successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly

successful in telling its readers what to think about, (Cohen, 1963, cited in Baran
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and Davis, 2009, p. 279). For the news to be able to decide what is being

presented on the television for the listeners to hear and visualize is frightening.

While humans have their own thoughts and beliefs, there is no control

over what is being displayed in front of the spectator and therefore may not know

the real story behind an event. Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald Shaw mention,

readers learn not only about a given issue, but how much importance to attach

to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position

The mass media may well determine the important issues --- that is, the media

may set the agenda of the campaign, (McCombs and Shaw, 1972, p. 176, cited

in Baran and Davis, 2009, p. 279). This supports how a news outlet has the

potential to make a story take on a life of its own and turn it into a media

masterpiece that the station can be proud of. The intention of news is not to

make it win an Oscar for best story telling, but to report the news the way it

occurred and to not promote it to receive a reaction from its viewers. The news

outlets do not factor in what is going to happen to the families involved after such

a monumental tragedy.

Being bombarded by the press for a week until the news forgets the story

and moves onto the next one, can affect the people involved for a lifetime. The

amount of coverage a story can attract has the capability to destroy people

mentally along with potentially causing physical harm. A news story that covers

ten minutes of a persons life has the power to alter everything about a person,

their family, friendships, where they live, and livelihood. Tragedy goes beyond a
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robbery and that is why black lives matter groups and multiple police shootings of

black victims have been frequently in the news. The media has awoken a race

war that was in the shadows for a long time, but has reemerged as a separation

between the blacks and other minority groups and law enforcement.

Law enforcement is continuously gathering a worse representation among

minority groups to the extent of predominantly black classrooms around the

country having teachers teaching kids what to say if approached by a police

officer. Not being shown in the news is how black on black crime is occurring

substantially more often then the police shootings in black communities. This

would be because the idea of gangs killing gangs of the same race does not

make news anywhere near as much as two different ethnicities having it out for

one another. It is unfortunate the media outlets have placed such a major

importance on racial tension in America and made it become its own topic of

discussion.

Racist protests have also been covered the past few months as news

companies have been monitoring President Trumps executive orders sending

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE) after undocumented

immigrants primarily from Spanish speaking countries. As the news continues to

target stories centering racism, the immigration ban is also at the forefront as

Muslims from select countries are being barred from entering the country

currently. Racist stories have taken over the news in a multitude of ways and thru

many routes from crimes to immigration and an array in between. The news is
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not solely vilifying people who commit crimes anymore, but aiming to frame

stories they believe will engage an active following to make their news coverage

become trending on social media.

Social media has made it where Elder Briggss robbery would have

become national news in a matter of minutes and spread like wildfire. This is not

because of any robbery and death becoming news, but solely because a black

man had been killed by a light skinned man, and that suffices for the news

stations to cover the catastrophic news. A lot of todays separation of races

happens from within social media with hashtags that represent individual minority

groups and evolve into full fledge movements. These movements are then

typically strewed in a different way by the media than the group would have

anticipated. Majority of blacks in support of black lives matter would not want

police to be killed in response to their actions, but would at least like to see the

police being held accountable for their actions. The news attempts to find the

rogue protesters and showcase those rioters on the news because it convinces

people to see a certain way and then to talk about it later with other people.

It is important to realize the outrage in the country when it comes to racial

differences and let people voice their opinions. If the media is framing stories

differently than how they are supposed to be intended, it is wrong and people

therefore do not have an outlet to turn to for news. There is an increasing priority

to tell if a story is being framed and to not allow it to create racial biases.

Understandably, race is a topic people are going to talk about and acknowledge,
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but it should not cause a dissonance among individuals. America is a country

founded on openness and acceptance, therefore the media should not be pinning

whites versus blacks or Jews versus Muslims in the news. If any intruder

commits a robbery in another persons home and somebody is killed it should be

newsworthy, and not because of the color of their skin.

Alexies story has many underlying messages meant to educate on the

framing of our news and its affect on society. The medias transformation of the

news for their own financial gain has caused a rift between cultures and

communities and needs to be addressed. Crimes should stay crimes without

having to alter a story to vilify someone for the sake of viewership. The medias

coverage established hardships for families involved in real life traumas and it is

time for these families to be entitled to privacy for the devastation they have had

endured.

Works Cited

Abraham, L., Appiah, O. (2006). Framing news stories: The role of visual imagery in

priming racial stereotypes. Howard Journal of Communications, 17, 183-203.

Baran, S., Davis, D. (2009). Mass communication theory. Foundations, ferment, and

future. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.