Editor & Publisher, August 16, 1997 v130 n33 p13(1)

                 Media perpetuate a myth. (media coverage of poor and of African Americans) Mark
                 Fitzgerald.

            Abstract: Yale University political scientist Martin Gilens reports a four year study reveals that the major media
            exaggerate the number of African Americans that are part of the poor. Gilens found that African Americans are
            overwhelmingly presented as members of the poor in stories focusing on an underclass and are
            underrepresented in favorable stories of the poor such as those on the elderly poor and the poor in job training
            programs. While 29% of poor people are African Americans, in major newsmagazines and on TV the numbers
            of portrayed poor people who are African Americans ranges from 53% to 66%. Only 12% of the working
            poor portrayed in newsmagazines were African Americans whereas 42% of poor African Americans are
            employed.

            Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 Editor & Publisher Company Most poor people in the U.S. are white, but
            most news coverage makes it appear they are black

            MOST POOR PEOPLE in the United States are white -- but you'd never know that by reading or watching
            the news. According to a recent study by a Yale University political scientist, while 29% of America's poor are
            black, far more than half of the poor people portrayed in newsmagazines and network television news shows
            are black.

            Martin Gilens' study of four years' worth of stories from Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report
            found that a wildly exaggerated percentage of the poor people on their pages were portrayed as blacks.

            Percentages ranged from 53% in U.S. News to 66% at Newsweek. Similarly, a five-year content study of
            weeknight news shows broadcast by ABC, CBS and NBC found that 65.2% of those poor people shown
            were, in cases where race could be determined, African American.

            Interestingly, black poor people were underrepresented when newsmagazines and network TV news shows
            portrayed working or elderly poor people.

            For example, while 42% of poor black Americans work, only 12% of the poor black people portrayed in
            newsmagazine articles were working poor.

            And while 8% of poor African Americans are aged 64 and over, less than one percent of the elderly poor
            portrayed in the magazine articles were black.

            Gilens, assistant professor in Yale's department of political science, said there was a consistent pattern in which
            African Americans were most overrepresented in "unsympathetic" groups of poor people, such as the so-called
            underclass, while they were underrepresented in "sympathetic" groups of poor people, such as participants in
            job-training. The media portrayals have political consequences, Gilens said. "Not only do African Americans as
            a whole suffer from the exaggerated association of race and poverty, but poor African Americans are portrayed
            in a particularly negative light," Gilens wrote in the study "Race and Poverty in America: Public Misperceptions
            and the American News Media."

            The results are no surprise, say two key committees of the National Association of Black Journalists.

            "Continued lack of inclusion, nonaggressive hiring practices in the media, poor reporting efforts and a major
            disconnect from African-American communities all contribute to the perpetuation of many misconceptions about
            black folk and poverty issues," NABJ's media monitoring committee and visual task force said in a statement
            released at the association's recent convention in Chicago.

            Opinion surveys have consistently shown the public substantially overestimates the percentage of poor people
            who are African Americans, the NABJ committees noted. "With a backlash against the poor, and against
            African Americans, a defining characteristic of late-1990s political discourse, the news media's responsibility to
            depict both groups accurately is more important than ever," the committees said in a statement. "Until that
            happens, the news media will not be simply reporting on that backlash -- they will continue to be helping to
            create it."
 
 
            Article A19741390