Reparations Not in the News

Study Shows Mainstream Media Reluctant to Take Issue Seriously

by Venise Wagner

In all probability, few people know that several developments in the reparations debate occurred this year. In March, eight African Americans filed a $1 billion lawsuit in a Manhattan federal court charging that Lloydís of London, FleetBoston, and R.J. Reynolds committed genocide in the slave trade against the plaintiffsí African ancestors.These descendants of slaves used DNA to link themselves to specific African tribes that were enslaved.

This was the second suit accusing firms of involvement in the slave trade. The first, filed in 2002 in New York, charged banks, insurance firms, tobacco and railroad companies of profiting from the slave trade and harming the descendants of slaves. In January, a judge dismissed that suit saying the plaintiffs wrongly tried to assert the legal rights of their ancestors and failed to show how slavery injured them after more than a century.

In May, Wayne County, Michigan, near Detroit, passed an ordinance requiring all county contractors with contracts of $20,000 or more to research and disclose any ties their businesses might have had to the slave trade. And in the summer Detroit joined Chicago and Los Angeles in requiring businesses contracted with those cities to research and disclose ties they might have had to slavery.

In his Illinois race against Barack Obama for a U.S. senate seat, Republican candidate Alan Keyes this summer called for support of reparations to American descendants of slaves through tax exemptions.

Earlier this year, Illinois became the second state (California was the first) to institute a law that requires insurance companies doing business there to disclose records of policies held by slaveholders for their slaves.

Why are people generally unaware of these developments? Few stories have appeared in the nationís newspapers. A Lexis-Nexis search found 114 stories written about reparations so far in 2004. The previous yearís database, 134 stories were found. This paltry coverage is evidence of reluctance in mainstream media to take the issue seriously, a charge that is supported in a 2002 content analysis I conducted of slave reparations coverage in major newspapers across the country.

The slave reparations debate reached a critical point in 2002: California launched its registry for insurance companies to disclose policies tied to slavery; the first class action suit was filed against U.S. companies involved in the slave trade; and Chicago discussed the merits of incorporating a disclosure law.

In this analysis, 350 stories were pulled from the Lexis-Nexis and Factiva databases using key words, slave and reparations from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2002. Two coders examined the stories recording among other things, the type of story, length, placement, tone and types of sources used. Stories about political races that made mention of reparations were thrown out, as were stories about fraudulent reparations tax claims.

Of the remaining 319 articles, 43 percent were editorials, 34 percent were news stories, 9 percent were features and 14 percent were classified as other, which included book reviews and stories that made references to reparations.

Of the editorials, 54 percent were opposed to reparations, 20 percent were ambivalent, 19 percent supported reparations and 7 percent were neutral. Of those opposed to reparations, many dripped with vitriol and disdain. The overall sentiment seemed to be: ìThey (descendants of slaves) already got welfare, affirmative action, civil rights and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. What more do they want?î

That editorials and letters to the editor superseded news stories is problematic. Writers tended to respond to an editorial or another letter to the editor rather than to a news story. The dearth of feature stories breathing depth into the issue of slave reparations exacerbated these lapses as readers across the country were left with a lack of understanding of the role of history in our current society and of the legacy of slavery in our economy and socio-political systems.

The analysis also showed that the sourcing used in the news stories undermined any sense that slavery has a connection with the world we live in today. For example, of the 110 news stories written, policymakers, spokespersons and civic organization leaders were quoted more often than descendants of slaves. Thirty-six percent of news stories quoted policymakers, while 23 percent quoted descendants of slaves. Only 5.4 percent quoted historians and none quoted economists.

On the other hand, feature stories tended to give the story of reparations much more historical context, quoting descendants of slaves as well as academics and attorneys. Policymakers were not as prominent in feature stories. Thirty-six percent of the 28 features quoted descendents, academics and attorneys, while 18 percent quoted policymakers and only 7 percent quoted economists. Yet, because features were so few, readers had fewer personal stories to attach to the issue and far less historical context on which to form opinions about slave reparations.

The reasons behind these results are multifaceted. Institutional practices have a lot to do with how editors and reporters choose news stories and their sources. The over reliance on news events relegates the issue of slave reparations to the inside pages and often results in short stories with little depth. In addition, the over dependence on officials as sources confines the story frame to one about policy rather than one about the social impact on human lives. In some cases the story was framed from the perspective of officials who had no ancestral links to slavery and therefore had limited experiences with the legacy of slavery and discrimination.

The other reasons behind the findings have more to do with relevance and who determines whether a story has it. If an editor or reporter hasnít experienced discrimination or the legacy of slavery, they are less likely to see slave reparations as a viable issue for debate. Psychologists call this selective perception.

Reporters and editors can get themselves out of this box by first becoming aware of the bias. Secondly, they must question their own assumptions about the relevance of stories. Using the Maynard Instituteís Fautlines framework, which acknowledges varying perspectives of stories by race, class, gender, geography and age. Run each story through the lens of each faultline and see how the story frame changes. The hard part is choosing the correct frame.

Despite ones feelings about slave reparations, a meaningful dialogue about the subject can enhance the larger conversation about race in this country and help America come to terms with its slave past.

To read supplementary materials for this report go here.

(Note: NewsWatch researcher Dawn Withers assisted in coding and entering the data for this study.)