Into the White Newsroom
Into the White Newsroom
White newspaper editors moved tepidly in the 1970s to integrate their newsrooms after the Kerner Commission highlighted how institutionalized racism resulted in unfair and inaccurate coverage of urban uprisings and race riots. This marked the moment when the black press lost its near exclusive access to the labor of black journalists, and the white press reluctantly reconsidered how it wrote about black communities and their concerns. Integration was difficult. White editors doubted black reporters’ objectivity, questioned their abilities, and refused to promote them. Black reporters working in the white media also encountered skepticism from African Americans who distrusted the journalists’ employers. To protect their professional rights, black reporters filed employment discrimination complaints and lawsuits, challenged government subpoenas, and formed advocacy organizations.
Keywords: institutionalized racism, integration, Kerner Commission, objectivity, race riots, urban uprisings, white media, white newspapers
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