The Role of Minority Journalists, Candidates, and Audiences in Shaping Race-Related Campaign News Coverage

Abstract

The question of whether press coverage of racial/ethnic minorities has improved remains. This study tackles it by examining (a) how journalists’ race/ethnicity affects campaign news coverage of race-related issues and (b) whether the nature of coverage is moderated by minority candidates and the racial composition of audiences. We pair local news coverage of 3,400 state legislative candidates with news data from 663 news outlets. We find newsroom diversity by itself does not influence the coverage of race-related issues. But in areas with large numbers of minority audiences, media outlets with diverse newsrooms are significantly more likely to cover race-related issues.

Sports media professionals reflect on racial stereotypes and ethnic diversity in the organization

“…Authors such as Willemars (2014) and Devroe (2007) state that prioritising diversity in the workforce is an important journalistic quality in times of pluralistic and multicultural societies. Nishikawa et al (2009) agree and argue that a diverse media corps can bring fresh perspectives to the table and will result in more balanced coverage of majority and minority issues. At the same time, findings by Nishikawa et al (2009) show that media professionals, both of a majority and minority background, generally conform to traditional journalistic principles such as fact-checking sources, writing effectively and most importantly being objective in one's reporting.…”

“…Nishikawa et al (2009) agree and argue that a diverse media corps can bring fresh perspectives to the table and will result in more balanced coverage of majority and minority issues. At the same time, findings by Nishikawa et al (2009) show that media professionals, both of a majority and minority background, generally conform to traditional journalistic principles such as fact-checking sources, writing effectively and most importantly being objective in one's reporting. These norms are an important part of their training/education and are reinforced by editors on the work floor on an everyday basis (Nishikawa et al, 2009).…”

“…At the same time, findings by Nishikawa et al (2009) show that media professionals, both of a majority and minority background, generally conform to traditional journalistic principles such as fact-checking sources, writing effectively and most importantly being objective in one's reporting. These norms are an important part of their training/education and are reinforced by editors on the work floor on an everyday basis (Nishikawa et al, 2009). Within this hegemonic discourse of what is "good journalism", an emphasis on racial/ethnic or gender diversity, an in-depth reflection on racial/ethnic bias, encouraging discussion on race in the organization, or including minority ethnic voices in the actual media coverage, is often seen as "advocacy journalism" or "promotional journalism" and as inconsistent with the alleged professional standards of "neutrality" and "objectivity" (Clark, 2017;Knoppers and Elling, 2004;Nishikawa et al, 2009).…”

“…This is important because research has shown that journalists' racial makeup or ethnicity can, unconsciously, inform their reporting practices (Shoemaker and Reese, 2016). As Nishikawa et al (2009) noted, reporting is never objective but the result of a subjective process. This process is influenced by a variety of factors such as working routines, targeted public and also social dimensions such as gender and ethnic background of the professionals producing the coverage: "In spite of the traditional notion of professional "objective" detachment, we assume these characteristics affect their work" (Shoemaker and Reese, 2016, p. 398).…”

The novelty news frame: How social identity influences policy attention of minority presidential candidates

“…One possible limitation of our research is that the journalists writing the articles in our sample could be more diverse than typical newsroom demographics. In fact, some research has shown that diversity of a news organization has implications for how race is covered (with greater equity) during elections (Sui et al, 2018). A second limitation is that our findings cannot be generalized to local or regional newspapers, or to any broadcast or independent online news outlets.…”