{"id":89905,"date":"2010-07-26T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2010\/07\/26\/media-race-and-obamas-first-year\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:18:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:18:21","slug":"media-race-and-obamas-first-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2010\/07\/26\/media-race-and-obamas-first-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Media, Race and Obama\u2019s First Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Study of African Americans in U.S. News Coverage<\/h2>\n\n

As a group, African Americans attracted relatively little attention in the U.S. mainstream news media during the first year of Barack Obama\u2019s presidency — and what coverage there was tended to focus more on specific episodes than on examining how broader issues and trends affected the lives of blacks generally, according to a year-long study by the Pew Research Center\u2019s Project for Excellence in Journalism and its Social and Demographic Trends Project.<\/p>\n\n

From early 2009 through early 2010, the biggest news story related to African Americans was the controversy triggered by the arrest last summer of a prominent black Harvard University professor by a white Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer. It accounted for nearly four times more African American-related coverage than did either of two biggest national \u201cissue\u201d stories covered by the mainstream media during the same period – the economy and health care.<\/p>\n\n

The study finds that 9% of the coverage of the nation\u2019s first black president and his administration during Obama\u2019s first year in office had some race angle to it. Here, too, this coverage was largely tied to specific incidents or controversies rather than to broader issues and themes. <\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

These findings come from an examination of more than 67,000 national news stories that appeared between February 16, 2009 and February 15, 2010 in different mainstream media outlets, including newspapers, cable and network television, radio, and news websites.<\/p>\n\n

[1]<\/p>\n\n\n

The press coverage that did emerge tended to be a reaction to events involving black newsmakers rather than to issues relating to African Americans more generally. The arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, the Obama presidency, the death of Michael Jackson and the attempted Northwest Airlines terrorist attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab accounted for nearly half (46.4%) of all coverage that had a substantial mention of African Americans during this time period.<\/p>\n\n

The press explored substantial African American angles for just two of the major issues facing the country \u2013 the economic crisis and the health care debate. But together these stories accounted for less than 10% of the total African American-focused coverage overall. (Together, the economy and health care, accounted for 33.5% of all coverage studied).<\/p>\n\n

A separate Pew Research analysis of three African American newspapers<\/a> reveals a very different approach to the coverage of the Gates incident. While the mainstream media largely assessed political implications for President Obama, the commentary in the black press considered the arrest itself and the broader question of race relations in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Footnote:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

<\/a>1.<\/strong> Our measurement here is based on newshole, which is total time and space a story takes, not the number of stories.\u00a0 Therefore, 643 of 67,245 is a different percentage than the 1.9% of the newshole.\n<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fallout from the firing of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod and the one-year anniversary of the controversial arrest of African American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have put race back in the news. How much coverage do African Americans receive? What role did race play in coverage of the Obama Administration? A new study examining media coverage of African Americans in the first year of the Obama presidency offers answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[{"key":"_migrate_0","postId":89914},{"key":"_migrate_1","postId":89720},{"key":"_migrate_2","postId":89725},{"key":"_migrate_3","postId":89734},{"key":"_migrate_4","postId":89741},{"key":"_migrate_5","postId":89750},{"key":"_migrate_6","postId":89755},{"key":"_migrate_7","postId":89760},{"key":"_migrate_8","postId":89770},{"key":"_migrate_9","postId":89776}],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"bylines":[{"key":"a511ec59-2de2-4181-ae1f-95c402d1e0f6","termId":2131},{"key":"9cbdae8e-35dc-4a64-aab6-f6119f4dd79f","termId":2222},{"key":"5c751ae5-3620-411f-a96d-978cef510a73","termId":987}],"acknowledgements":[],"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[75,149,101,337,38,340,28],"tags":[],"bylines":[987,2131,2222],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[527],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-89905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-black-americans","category-discrimination-prejudice","category-news-content-analysis","category-political-issues","category-presidents-press","category-race-ethnicity","bylines-amy-mitchell","bylines-emily-guskin","bylines-mahvish-shahid-khan","formats-report","research-teams-journalism"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":445,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2010\/07\/26\/media-race-and-obamas-first-year\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[{"id":89905,"title":"Media, 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