Have Things Improved?

What has changed, if anything, since the Rodney King beating?

A decade ago the videotape of Rodney King's beating by LAPD officers shocked the nation. The incident raised issues in our society about racism and police brutality. In the journalism industry, the event and its aftermath caused us to examine our coverage. Did our coverage tell the story of everyone involved? Or did we make it a black/white issue? Now, 10 years later, News Watch contacted several editors to ask them if they thought news coverage of race issues has improved? Here's what they said. ?
"In my mind, (coverage) hasn't changed. It's just as bad. It might even be worse. The media covers minority communities on the basis that they covered Rodney King, only for extraordinary things. Day to day stuff, they write things largely as they did in 1968, like it's a white man's world. Nothing's changed. ..." [ READ MORE ]

Earl Caldwell Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

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"I think that there's a need for more historical perspective. For many young people today, the civil rights movement is seen as ancient history. For the vast majority of American history, there has been in place a system of apartheid. It has only been 30 years that minorities have had equal rights on the book. ..." [ READ MORE ]

Joel Dreyfuss Senior Writer at Bloomberg

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"I think that journalism's role is to tell people what's really going on out there. But journalism doesn't always have the power to change things. ..." [ READ MORE ] Austin Long-Scott Journalism professor at SFSU

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"Progress first starts with a diverse newsroom. We all have different ideas about things and we all see things different, not just ethnically but class. We need newsrooms that mirror our communities. Is it better than 20 years ago? Hell yes. But that doesn't mean that we don't have a long way to go. ..." [ READ MORE ] Robert J. Lopez Los Angeles Times reporter

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"It was a horrible time and it was a turning point -- not just for ethnic Koreans, but for the nation. Bush was not re-elected. Policy and business leaders realized they cannot succeed without responding to the needs of the working poor and those who are jobless. ..." [ READ MORE ]

Angela Oh Los Angeles attorney

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"America and the media have changed significantly since the beating.   There is clearly more awareness of ethnic minorities among editors and the need to cover them better. In many cases, the coverage is much improved. In others, there is still a lot that falls between the cracks. ..." [ READ MORE ] Sreenath Sreenivasan Journalism professor at Columbia University

 

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"The Rodney King videotape lended great credibility to what had been sort of unspoken, unpublished reality of urban life, which is that the war on drugs and the war on crime had in many ways had become a war on people of color, a war that was out of control. ..." [ READ MORE ] Hector Tobar Los Angeles Times national correspondent

 

 

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