4 in 5 Black adults see racist depictions in the news either often or sometimes, says new study
DAVID BAUDER
Updated Wed, September 27, 2023
Kevin Richardson, far left, Yusef Salaam, second from left, and Raymond Santana Jr., far right foreground, three of five men exonerated after being wrongfully convicted as teenagers for the 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park, along with Cicely Harris, second from right, chair of Harlem's Community Board 10, unveil the "The Gate of the Exonerated" at the northeast gateway of Central Park, Monday Dec. 19, 2022, in New York. In a new study, Black Americans expressed broad concerns about how they are depicted in the news media, with majorities saying they see racist or negative depictions and a lack of effort to cover broad segments of their community.
Cheyanne M. Daniels
Tue, September 26, 2023
A new poll found that nearly half of Black Americans feel news coverage of them and their community is “racially problematic.”
In a survey of nearly 5,000 Black adults, the Pew Research Center found that 39 percent of Black Americans said they often see news that in some way is racist or racially insensitive, with 43 percent saying the coverage largely stereotypes Black people.
Respondents attributed the problems to a host of issues, including outlets pushing agendas, uninformed journalists and racist views among people at news outlets. More than 35 percent attributed the racially insensitive coverage to a lack of Black staff at news outlets.
The survey also found that 63 percent said news coverage about Black people is often more negative than news about other racial and ethnic groups, with half of the respondents believing coverage is often missing important information.
These views persisted regardless of gender, age and political party affiliation.
But the survey also highlighted how Black Americans believe problematic news coverage can be addressed.
Sixty-four percent of respondents said “educating all journalists about issues impacting Black Americans” is a very effective way of making coverage fairer.
More than 50 percent said including more Black people as sources and hiring more Black people as newsroom leaders would be also highly effective.
But 45 percent of Black Americans also said that Black journalists do a better job covering issues related to race and racial inequality.
Forty percent also said it is “crucial” that the news they get about issues related to race and racial inequality comes from Black journalists.
New Survey Reveals Black People Still Don't Trust Media When It Comes to Our Portrayal
Candace McDuffie
Edwin Rios in New York and agency
Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY
Updated Tue, September 26, 2023
WASHINGTON − Black Americans, scarred by a history of mistrust of the media, have little faith that news organizations will do a good job of covering their communities fairly, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday.
“Few actually believe that this will change, not giving a lot of hope into the future,’’ said Katerina Eva Matsa, director of news and information research at the Pew Research Center.
The Pew Research Center conducted the survey to examine the relationship between Black Americans and news in the U.S. It comes more than three years after the murder of George Floyd ramped up social justice movements, calling out institutions, including the media, about their role in covering communities of color and the impact that has in forcing change.
Pew surveyed nearly 5,000 Black adults from Feb. 22 to March 5 this year and online focus groups in July and August of 2022 on a host of questions, including how they think Black people are portrayed in the media, whether much of it is negative or fair, and whether it’s likely to improve.
Only 14% of Black Americans are highly confident Black people will be covered fairly in their lifetimes, saying it is extremely or very likely to happen, the survey found. Of the respondents, 38% said it’s not likely or not at all likely to happen, and 40% said it’s somewhat likely.
Bremanté Bryant, an adjunct professor at Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., said he’s not surprised by the Pew findings, which he said are in line with what he hears from students and young adults.
“They feel that more of the reports and the reporters should have a better sense of the communities they're covering,’’ said Bryant, who teaches multicultural media history.
“When they look at the mainstream media, they see that as 'the white media' and the news that they often get are from social media sites that come from a Black perspective, whether that’s Black Twitter or that's the Root,’’ Bryant said. “They want to get news from as they see it, ‘Black folks talking about Black things.’ And to be honest, even with that, they're not totally trusting of that.”
'Help me find my children': How race affects social media efforts to find missing kids
Who is telling Black stories?
Black Americans' mistrust of the media is not new, experts said. That’s in part why the Black press was created. It was the Black press that often reported on pressing issues in the Black community, including the wave of lynchings and violence against Black citizens, particularly in the South.
“The Black press was really a counter to what the mainstream press was not doing, which was either not telling the stories or telling the stories from a negative point of view of the Black and African American community,’’ Bryant said.
He said media coverage of Black communities has improved in some ways, but “we're starting to regress because you are seeing more and more small newspapers being wiped out and that includes the Black press.”
Mainstream media has a long history of racial profiling and perpetuating stereotypes of Black Americans. Some newspapers not only supported Jim Crow and segregation practices but also defended them.
“Black Americans distrust of media and perceptions of the Fourth Estate as another institution that inflicted harm is there and those perceptions were well earned,’’ said Sherri Williams, assistant professor in race, media and communication at the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.
Do newsrooms reflect diversity in the United States?
After the protests that followed Floyd’s death, many news organizations vowed to improve coverage of communities of color. Some pledged to do more to diversify their newsrooms and increase the number of people of color leading those newsrooms.
Those promises have often fallen short, experts said.
“There still hasn't been sustained coverage of Black communities in a way that not only prioritizes what's important to them, and also doesn't lean into stereotypes,’’ said Williams, who teaches classes on race and representation including Identity, Power and Misrepresentation and Race, Ethnic and Community Reporting.
She said some newsrooms hadn’t changed much of their culture, which is often very white, very monolith “and just not ideologically prepared to cover the news in a different way.’’
Corporate diversity database: A USA TODAY investigative series inside the nation's most powerful companies
Poll: Journalists should talk to more Black people
The Pew survey found respondents said there are some paths to improving coverage, including diversifying more newsrooms and sources for stories and better educating reporters about the history and issues in Black communities.
They also said including more Black people as sources (54%) and hiring more Black people as newsroom leaders (53%) and as journalists (44%) at news outlets would be highly effective.
Many said it’s important the media gets all sides of an issue and understand the history and community.
“Large majorities believe that this is extremely important and very important for how we cover news in general,’’ Matsa said.
One way to improve relations is to do more community outreach and be transparent about how decisions are made and how news is covered, Williams said. She said it might also help for mainstream media to partner with more Black media outlets, often trusted sources.
Still, she said, repairing that trust soon looks grim in part because of the polarization and corporatization of news.
"I don't think that newsrooms should give up,'' Williams said. "They should look at ways of really being in communities and earning their trust. But I also think if they really are serious about doing this they need to get serious about investing the time and resources to do it.’’
DAVID BAUDER
Updated Wed, September 27, 2023
Kevin Richardson, far left, Yusef Salaam, second from left, and Raymond Santana Jr., far right foreground, three of five men exonerated after being wrongfully convicted as teenagers for the 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park, along with Cicely Harris, second from right, chair of Harlem's Community Board 10, unveil the "The Gate of the Exonerated" at the northeast gateway of Central Park, Monday Dec. 19, 2022, in New York. In a new study, Black Americans expressed broad concerns about how they are depicted in the news media, with majorities saying they see racist or negative depictions and a lack of effort to cover broad segments of their community.
(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, FIle)
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new study, Black Americans expressed broad concerns about how they are depicted in the news media, with majorities saying they see racist or negative depictions and a lack of effort to cover broad segments of their community.
Four in five Black adults say they see racist or racially insensitive depictions of their race in the news either often or sometimes, according to the Pew Research Center.
Three years after George Floyd's killing triggered a racial reckoning in the news media, Pew took its first broad-based look at Black attitudes toward the media with a survey of nearly 5,000 Black adults this past winter and follow-up focus groups.
The survey found 63% of respondents saying news about Black people is often more negative than it is toward other racial or ethnic groups, with 28% saying it is about equal.
“It's not surprising at all,” said Charles Whitaker, dean of the Medill journalism school at Northwestern University. "We've known both anecdotally, and through my personal experience with the Black press, that Blacks have long been dissatisfied with their coverage.
“There's a feeling that Black Americans are often depicted as perpetrators or victims of crime, and there are no nuances in the coverage,” Whitaker said.
That attitude is reflected in the Pew study's finding that 57% of respondents say the media only covers certain segments of Black communities, compared to 9% who say that a wide variety is depicted.
“They should put a lot more effort into providing context,” said Richard Prince, a columnist for the Journal-isms newsletter, which covers diversity issues. “They should realize that Blacks and other people of color want to be portrayed as having the same concerns as everybody else, in addition to hearing news about African American concerns.”
Advertising actually does a much better job of showing Black people in situations common to everybody, raising families or deciding where to go for dinner, he said.
Prince said he's frequently heard concerns about Black crime victims being treated like suspects in news coverage, down to the use of police mug shots as illustrations. He recently convened a journalist's roundtable to discuss the lingering, notorious issue of five Black men who were exonerated after being accused of attacking a white jogger in New York's Central Park in the 1980s.
During a time of sharp partisan differences, the study found virtually no difference in attitudes toward news coverage between Black Democrats and Republicans, said Katerina Eva Matsa, director of news and information research at Pew.
For example, 46% of Republicans and 44% of Democrats say that news coverage largely stereotyped Black people, Pew said.
Negative attitudes toward the press tended to increase with income and education levels, Matsa said. While 57% of those in lower income levels said news coverage about Black people was more negative than it was about other groups. That number jumped to 75% of wealthier respondents, the study found.
A large majority of those surveyed, young and old, expressed little confidence that things would improve much in their lifetime.
While 40% of survey participants said it was important to see Black journalists report on issues about race and racial inequality, the race of journalists wasn't that important about general news.
Prince said it's important for journalists to know history; he wrote on Monday about the idea of a government shutdown was raised in 1879 when former Confederates in Congress wanted to deny money to protect Black people at the polls, and how the filibuster started to prevent civil rights legislation.
At Northwestern, professors are trying to teach students of the importance of having a broader sense of the communities that they're covering, Whitaker said. Medill is also a hub for solutions journalism, which emphasizes coverage of people trying to solve societal problems.
“We're trying to get away from parachute journalism,” he said.
Prince said there was notable progress, post-Floyd, in the hiring of Black journalists into leadership roles in the media. Unfortunately, the news industry continues to contract while social media increases in importance, he said.
“We're integrating an industry that's shrinking,” he said.
39 percent of Black Americans say news about them is ‘racially insensitive’
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new study, Black Americans expressed broad concerns about how they are depicted in the news media, with majorities saying they see racist or negative depictions and a lack of effort to cover broad segments of their community.
Four in five Black adults say they see racist or racially insensitive depictions of their race in the news either often or sometimes, according to the Pew Research Center.
Three years after George Floyd's killing triggered a racial reckoning in the news media, Pew took its first broad-based look at Black attitudes toward the media with a survey of nearly 5,000 Black adults this past winter and follow-up focus groups.
The survey found 63% of respondents saying news about Black people is often more negative than it is toward other racial or ethnic groups, with 28% saying it is about equal.
“It's not surprising at all,” said Charles Whitaker, dean of the Medill journalism school at Northwestern University. "We've known both anecdotally, and through my personal experience with the Black press, that Blacks have long been dissatisfied with their coverage.
“There's a feeling that Black Americans are often depicted as perpetrators or victims of crime, and there are no nuances in the coverage,” Whitaker said.
That attitude is reflected in the Pew study's finding that 57% of respondents say the media only covers certain segments of Black communities, compared to 9% who say that a wide variety is depicted.
“They should put a lot more effort into providing context,” said Richard Prince, a columnist for the Journal-isms newsletter, which covers diversity issues. “They should realize that Blacks and other people of color want to be portrayed as having the same concerns as everybody else, in addition to hearing news about African American concerns.”
Advertising actually does a much better job of showing Black people in situations common to everybody, raising families or deciding where to go for dinner, he said.
Prince said he's frequently heard concerns about Black crime victims being treated like suspects in news coverage, down to the use of police mug shots as illustrations. He recently convened a journalist's roundtable to discuss the lingering, notorious issue of five Black men who were exonerated after being accused of attacking a white jogger in New York's Central Park in the 1980s.
During a time of sharp partisan differences, the study found virtually no difference in attitudes toward news coverage between Black Democrats and Republicans, said Katerina Eva Matsa, director of news and information research at Pew.
For example, 46% of Republicans and 44% of Democrats say that news coverage largely stereotyped Black people, Pew said.
Negative attitudes toward the press tended to increase with income and education levels, Matsa said. While 57% of those in lower income levels said news coverage about Black people was more negative than it was about other groups. That number jumped to 75% of wealthier respondents, the study found.
A large majority of those surveyed, young and old, expressed little confidence that things would improve much in their lifetime.
While 40% of survey participants said it was important to see Black journalists report on issues about race and racial inequality, the race of journalists wasn't that important about general news.
Prince said it's important for journalists to know history; he wrote on Monday about the idea of a government shutdown was raised in 1879 when former Confederates in Congress wanted to deny money to protect Black people at the polls, and how the filibuster started to prevent civil rights legislation.
At Northwestern, professors are trying to teach students of the importance of having a broader sense of the communities that they're covering, Whitaker said. Medill is also a hub for solutions journalism, which emphasizes coverage of people trying to solve societal problems.
“We're trying to get away from parachute journalism,” he said.
Prince said there was notable progress, post-Floyd, in the hiring of Black journalists into leadership roles in the media. Unfortunately, the news industry continues to contract while social media increases in importance, he said.
“We're integrating an industry that's shrinking,” he said.
39 percent of Black Americans say news about them is ‘racially insensitive’
Cheyanne M. Daniels
Tue, September 26, 2023
A new poll found that nearly half of Black Americans feel news coverage of them and their community is “racially problematic.”
In a survey of nearly 5,000 Black adults, the Pew Research Center found that 39 percent of Black Americans said they often see news that in some way is racist or racially insensitive, with 43 percent saying the coverage largely stereotypes Black people.
Respondents attributed the problems to a host of issues, including outlets pushing agendas, uninformed journalists and racist views among people at news outlets. More than 35 percent attributed the racially insensitive coverage to a lack of Black staff at news outlets.
The survey also found that 63 percent said news coverage about Black people is often more negative than news about other racial and ethnic groups, with half of the respondents believing coverage is often missing important information.
These views persisted regardless of gender, age and political party affiliation.
But the survey also highlighted how Black Americans believe problematic news coverage can be addressed.
Sixty-four percent of respondents said “educating all journalists about issues impacting Black Americans” is a very effective way of making coverage fairer.
More than 50 percent said including more Black people as sources and hiring more Black people as newsroom leaders would be also highly effective.
But 45 percent of Black Americans also said that Black journalists do a better job covering issues related to race and racial inequality.
Forty percent also said it is “crucial” that the news they get about issues related to race and racial inequality comes from Black journalists.
New Survey Reveals Black People Still Don't Trust Media When It Comes to Our Portrayal
Candace McDuffie
THE ROOT
Wed, September 27, 2023
According to a new study released Tuesday by Pew Research Center, Black Americans rightfully remain skeptical as hell when it comes to how the media covers our communities.
The survey reveals that nearly two-thirds of Black adults (63 percent) believe news about Black people is usually more disparaging than news about other racial and ethnic groups.
Earlier this year, Pew surveyed almost 5,000 Black adults from Feb. 22 to March 5. In addition, online focus groups were conducted in July and August of 2022 where Pew asked how they believe Black people are portrayed in the media, whether it is accurate or fair, and if it will ever get better.
Though many people rely on social media for information, Black Americans understand that’s not a reliable source for truth either. Around one-in-five (18 peecent) say they trust the accuracy of the information they see on social media, which is much less than the number of people who rely on local and national news outlets (48 percent and 44 percent, respectively).
Some solutions presented by participants include implementing Black folks as sources, journalists and newsrooms leaders. But as we’ve seen, the diversity, equity and inclusion that was promised following the Floyd protests was nothing but lip service.
Wed, September 27, 2023
According to a new study released Tuesday by Pew Research Center, Black Americans rightfully remain skeptical as hell when it comes to how the media covers our communities.
The survey reveals that nearly two-thirds of Black adults (63 percent) believe news about Black people is usually more disparaging than news about other racial and ethnic groups.
Earlier this year, Pew surveyed almost 5,000 Black adults from Feb. 22 to March 5. In addition, online focus groups were conducted in July and August of 2022 where Pew asked how they believe Black people are portrayed in the media, whether it is accurate or fair, and if it will ever get better.
Though many people rely on social media for information, Black Americans understand that’s not a reliable source for truth either. Around one-in-five (18 peecent) say they trust the accuracy of the information they see on social media, which is much less than the number of people who rely on local and national news outlets (48 percent and 44 percent, respectively).
Some solutions presented by participants include implementing Black folks as sources, journalists and newsrooms leaders. But as we’ve seen, the diversity, equity and inclusion that was promised following the Floyd protests was nothing but lip service.
The Root
Majority of Black Americans say they are depicted unfairly in news – study
Majority of Black Americans say they are depicted unfairly in news – study
Edwin Rios in New York and agency
THE GUARDIAN
Wed, September 27, 2023
Photograph: Dean Mitchell/Getty Images
A majority of Black Americans say that their communities are unfairly depicted in news coverage, according to a sweeping new survey on Wednesday.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents observed that their community received more negative coverage than other racial and ethnic groups, the Pew Research Center survey found. Roughly four in 10 surveyed said that the media not only stereotyped Black people but also felt that they saw racist and racially insensitive coverage sometimes or fairly often.
The center’s findings reflect the shortfalls of a so-called racial reckoning that swept through newsrooms across the United States in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, when news outlets focused on hiring for roles centering diversity and inclusion and reporters and editors focused on covering communities traditionally underrepresented in news coverage.
The latest survey indicates that the so-called reckoning inside newsrooms has struggled to reach the communities that they are meant to serve, including as the news business continues to experience layoffs, and failed to change the way communities feel about the coverage they receive.
Charles Whitaker, dean of the Northwestern University’s Medill school of journalism told the Associated Press he was unsurprised by the findings.
He echoed the lack of nuance in coverage as a longstanding feeling among Black Americans who feel they are often portrayed as either victims of crimes or those who commit them. “We’ve known both anecdotally, and through my personal experience with the Black press, that Blacks have long been dissatisfied with their coverage,” he said.
The center surveyed nearly 5,000 adults over the winter to get their opinion on how Black Americans felt about how their communities are covered in the news media. The feelings of unfair coverage cut across political lines with Black Democrats and Republicans feeling very similar about how news coverage stereotyped Black communities.
More than two-thirds of Black adults surveyed noted that educating journalists about the history and context surrounding the issues facing their communities played a vital role in helping to improve coverage.
What’s more, a majority of Black Americans also noted that including more Black people as sources in news coverage would also heighten feelings of fairness in coverage for them. A majority also found that hiring more Black people in leadership positions helped to make news coverage about their communities more fair.
At least four in 10 people surveyed also found that hiring more Black reporters would make such coverage more fair. What’s more, they saw it was crucial that race and racial inequity coverage came from Black reporters, though just over half said it mattered as much for overall news coverage.
Richard Prince, a columnist for the Journal-isms newsletter, told the Associated Press that the findings reinforced the idea that Black Americans, like other groups, “want to be portrayed as having the same concerns as everybody else. Still, he acknowledged that progress had been made in the upper echelons of newsrooms at a time when the industry experiences layoffs, adding: “We’re integrating an industry that’s shrinking.”
Few of those surveyed, no matter the age, say they were confident that their communities will be covered fairly over the course of their lifetimes.
Black people's distrust of media not likely to change any time soon, survey found.
Wed, September 27, 2023
Photograph: Dean Mitchell/Getty Images
A majority of Black Americans say that their communities are unfairly depicted in news coverage, according to a sweeping new survey on Wednesday.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents observed that their community received more negative coverage than other racial and ethnic groups, the Pew Research Center survey found. Roughly four in 10 surveyed said that the media not only stereotyped Black people but also felt that they saw racist and racially insensitive coverage sometimes or fairly often.
The center’s findings reflect the shortfalls of a so-called racial reckoning that swept through newsrooms across the United States in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, when news outlets focused on hiring for roles centering diversity and inclusion and reporters and editors focused on covering communities traditionally underrepresented in news coverage.
The latest survey indicates that the so-called reckoning inside newsrooms has struggled to reach the communities that they are meant to serve, including as the news business continues to experience layoffs, and failed to change the way communities feel about the coverage they receive.
Charles Whitaker, dean of the Northwestern University’s Medill school of journalism told the Associated Press he was unsurprised by the findings.
He echoed the lack of nuance in coverage as a longstanding feeling among Black Americans who feel they are often portrayed as either victims of crimes or those who commit them. “We’ve known both anecdotally, and through my personal experience with the Black press, that Blacks have long been dissatisfied with their coverage,” he said.
The center surveyed nearly 5,000 adults over the winter to get their opinion on how Black Americans felt about how their communities are covered in the news media. The feelings of unfair coverage cut across political lines with Black Democrats and Republicans feeling very similar about how news coverage stereotyped Black communities.
More than two-thirds of Black adults surveyed noted that educating journalists about the history and context surrounding the issues facing their communities played a vital role in helping to improve coverage.
What’s more, a majority of Black Americans also noted that including more Black people as sources in news coverage would also heighten feelings of fairness in coverage for them. A majority also found that hiring more Black people in leadership positions helped to make news coverage about their communities more fair.
At least four in 10 people surveyed also found that hiring more Black reporters would make such coverage more fair. What’s more, they saw it was crucial that race and racial inequity coverage came from Black reporters, though just over half said it mattered as much for overall news coverage.
Richard Prince, a columnist for the Journal-isms newsletter, told the Associated Press that the findings reinforced the idea that Black Americans, like other groups, “want to be portrayed as having the same concerns as everybody else. Still, he acknowledged that progress had been made in the upper echelons of newsrooms at a time when the industry experiences layoffs, adding: “We’re integrating an industry that’s shrinking.”
Few of those surveyed, no matter the age, say they were confident that their communities will be covered fairly over the course of their lifetimes.
Black people's distrust of media not likely to change any time soon, survey found.
Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY
Updated Tue, September 26, 2023
WASHINGTON − Black Americans, scarred by a history of mistrust of the media, have little faith that news organizations will do a good job of covering their communities fairly, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday.
“Few actually believe that this will change, not giving a lot of hope into the future,’’ said Katerina Eva Matsa, director of news and information research at the Pew Research Center.
The Pew Research Center conducted the survey to examine the relationship between Black Americans and news in the U.S. It comes more than three years after the murder of George Floyd ramped up social justice movements, calling out institutions, including the media, about their role in covering communities of color and the impact that has in forcing change.
Pew surveyed nearly 5,000 Black adults from Feb. 22 to March 5 this year and online focus groups in July and August of 2022 on a host of questions, including how they think Black people are portrayed in the media, whether much of it is negative or fair, and whether it’s likely to improve.
Only 14% of Black Americans are highly confident Black people will be covered fairly in their lifetimes, saying it is extremely or very likely to happen, the survey found. Of the respondents, 38% said it’s not likely or not at all likely to happen, and 40% said it’s somewhat likely.
Bremanté Bryant, an adjunct professor at Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., said he’s not surprised by the Pew findings, which he said are in line with what he hears from students and young adults.
“They feel that more of the reports and the reporters should have a better sense of the communities they're covering,’’ said Bryant, who teaches multicultural media history.
“When they look at the mainstream media, they see that as 'the white media' and the news that they often get are from social media sites that come from a Black perspective, whether that’s Black Twitter or that's the Root,’’ Bryant said. “They want to get news from as they see it, ‘Black folks talking about Black things.’ And to be honest, even with that, they're not totally trusting of that.”
'Help me find my children': How race affects social media efforts to find missing kids
What do Black Republicans and Democrats say about the media?
The Pew survey found that nearly two-thirds of Black adults said the news they see or hear about Black people is often more negative than news about people from other racial and ethnic groups. That’s in contrast to 28% who say Black people are covered about the same as other groups and 7% who say coverage of Black people is often more positive.
Matsa said one reason is that respondents said some news organizations support specific agendas. They also point to journalists not being well informed and news outlets holding racist views.
“There’s a lot of those issues and opinions that Black Americans are holding as major reasons why coverage that they're seeing is racist or racially insensitive,’’ Matsa said.
The survey found that 53% of Black Republicans and 50% of Black Democrats said media coverage often misses important information about Black communities. And 46% of Black Republicans and 44% of Black Democrats agree that media coverage largely stereotypes Black people.
The Pew survey found that nearly two-thirds of Black adults said the news they see or hear about Black people is often more negative than news about people from other racial and ethnic groups. That’s in contrast to 28% who say Black people are covered about the same as other groups and 7% who say coverage of Black people is often more positive.
Matsa said one reason is that respondents said some news organizations support specific agendas. They also point to journalists not being well informed and news outlets holding racist views.
“There’s a lot of those issues and opinions that Black Americans are holding as major reasons why coverage that they're seeing is racist or racially insensitive,’’ Matsa said.
The survey found that 53% of Black Republicans and 50% of Black Democrats said media coverage often misses important information about Black communities. And 46% of Black Republicans and 44% of Black Democrats agree that media coverage largely stereotypes Black people.
Who is telling Black stories?
Black Americans' mistrust of the media is not new, experts said. That’s in part why the Black press was created. It was the Black press that often reported on pressing issues in the Black community, including the wave of lynchings and violence against Black citizens, particularly in the South.
“The Black press was really a counter to what the mainstream press was not doing, which was either not telling the stories or telling the stories from a negative point of view of the Black and African American community,’’ Bryant said.
He said media coverage of Black communities has improved in some ways, but “we're starting to regress because you are seeing more and more small newspapers being wiped out and that includes the Black press.”
Mainstream media has a long history of racial profiling and perpetuating stereotypes of Black Americans. Some newspapers not only supported Jim Crow and segregation practices but also defended them.
“Black Americans distrust of media and perceptions of the Fourth Estate as another institution that inflicted harm is there and those perceptions were well earned,’’ said Sherri Williams, assistant professor in race, media and communication at the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.
Do newsrooms reflect diversity in the United States?
After the protests that followed Floyd’s death, many news organizations vowed to improve coverage of communities of color. Some pledged to do more to diversify their newsrooms and increase the number of people of color leading those newsrooms.
Those promises have often fallen short, experts said.
“There still hasn't been sustained coverage of Black communities in a way that not only prioritizes what's important to them, and also doesn't lean into stereotypes,’’ said Williams, who teaches classes on race and representation including Identity, Power and Misrepresentation and Race, Ethnic and Community Reporting.
She said some newsrooms hadn’t changed much of their culture, which is often very white, very monolith “and just not ideologically prepared to cover the news in a different way.’’
Corporate diversity database: A USA TODAY investigative series inside the nation's most powerful companies
Poll: Journalists should talk to more Black people
The Pew survey found respondents said there are some paths to improving coverage, including diversifying more newsrooms and sources for stories and better educating reporters about the history and issues in Black communities.
They also said including more Black people as sources (54%) and hiring more Black people as newsroom leaders (53%) and as journalists (44%) at news outlets would be highly effective.
Many said it’s important the media gets all sides of an issue and understand the history and community.
“Large majorities believe that this is extremely important and very important for how we cover news in general,’’ Matsa said.
One way to improve relations is to do more community outreach and be transparent about how decisions are made and how news is covered, Williams said. She said it might also help for mainstream media to partner with more Black media outlets, often trusted sources.
Still, she said, repairing that trust soon looks grim in part because of the polarization and corporatization of news.
"I don't think that newsrooms should give up,'' Williams said. "They should look at ways of really being in communities and earning their trust. But I also think if they really are serious about doing this they need to get serious about investing the time and resources to do it.’’
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