"I used to think that 11 o'clock on Sunday [morning] was the most segregated hour in America because that's when we all dressed up and went to our own churches. But I've changed my mind....The most segregated hour comes at about 4 pm, when newspaper editors sit down and decide...what is news." Ben Johnson, at the time a black assistant managing editor at the St. Petersburg Times, as quoted in the Los Angles Times.

You might have been reading along with me on June 1, 1993, when the Wall Street Journal editorial page bashed "welfare mothers" by describing their so-called opposites, senior citizens, who "are patriotic, they do not have illegitimate children, they do not commit crimes, they do not riot in the streets, [and] their popular entertainments are decent rather than degrading." Or in February 1990 when CBS humorist Andy Rooney was quoted as saying: "I've believed all along that most people are born with equal intelligence, but blacks have watered down their genes because the less intelligent ones are the ones that have the most children. They drop out of school early, do drugs, and get pregnant."

It may be one of the best-kept secrets in America: "the liberal media" is not terribly liberal. American journalism is often misleading, myopic and unreliable when it comes to detailing the lives of African-Americans. Powerful columnists like U.S. News and World Report's John Leo rail about "the demonizing of white men."

"Like the guerrillas moving down from the hills to attack the cities," he writes, "the race and gender people are no longer just sniping from marginal positions.... With the aid of an ever credulous press corps, they are now pumping their doctrine into the general culture." But even on public television, the supposed nexus of the liberal media, these "guerillas" are nowhere to be found. In fact, a study by watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting reveals, fully 90 percent of the guest sources on the "MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour" and, in the networks, on ABC's "Nightline", were white.

An extensive study of how network news covers African-Americans came to equally disturbing conclusions. Northwestern University professor Robert Entman found that black experts only showed up as experts in 15 of 2,000 minutes of news not specifically covering racial issues. (They were half of the experts on race-based stories.) More devastating, African-Americans are almost always shown as sources or victims of trouble. Fully 46% of stories involving blacks showed them as criminals or victims of crime, poverty, and discrimination, or, as the study puts it: "as threats to or non-contributing victims of American society."

In all, nearly 60% of network news about blacks was negative. The African-Americans who are shown succeeding, on television and in newspapers and magazines, are often the superstars--entertainers and athletes who lead lifestyles far beyond the means of most black or white Americans. The entire hardworking, typical center of the black community drops out of media coverage. The problem with this skewed presentation is not simply that it is incorrect. The larger dilemma is that many white Americans have little to base their knowledge of African-Americans on but what they see, hear, and read in the media.

The vast majority of Americans still live and socialize, if not work, predominantly among people of their own race. Given that fact, the repeated images of blacks as unproductive and often dangerous members of this society can have a deep effect on racial attitudes and tensions. In journalism's game of connect-the-dots, "black" has come to symbolize crime, reckless childbearing, moral turpitude-- "pathology."

African-Americans have come to symbolize the worst America has to offer. Demographic "facts" don't sufficiently explain the pervasive stereotyping of blacks. Consider this comparison: African-Americans are a mere 12% of America's population. The majority of violent crime is committed by whites, but violent criminals are disproportionately likely to be black (over 40% of violent criminals are black). The majority of enlistees in the army are white, but a disproportionate number of enlistees are black (over 30% of army soldiers are black).

Those are, on their face, two unrelated facts, but they illustrate a point. Blacks have become a symbol of crime in America, yet not a symbol of patriotism. (In fact, most Americans consider blacks less patriotic than whites.6) The same stereotyping that occurs for blacks works in reverse for whites. Whites have not become symbols of mass murder, though serial killers are disproportionately likely to be white. No one talks of the Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Jim Jones, or Joel Rifkin killings as "white" crimes.

The only recent mass murder by an African-American, Colin Ferguson, received a disproportionate amount of news coverage. As much as facts can be manipulated, facts are also a powerful way to destroy stereotypes. Facts that don't fit the "conventional wisdom" on race, facts that we as readers and viewers can use to write letters to the editor - or just to inform our own thoughts and conversations - empower us. Don't Believe the Hype contains verbal ammunition for the battles over race that are fought in the media - and in our private lives - every day.

Many of the facts in this book contradict the images of African-Americans seen in the news. But more than that, they round out the simplistic notions of how race affects our actions and perceptions, shedding light on a more complicated reality. In the final analysis, it's up to us as reader and viewers to keep the media honest, to not simply rely on (or reject out of hand) any one source of information. That's hard work! But the next time--and there will be one-- that you see or read something that makes you want to scream and write a letter, this book will help you find the facts you need to say what you want to say. Pointing out times that the media has

Pointing out the issues and problems facing the African-American community, no matter how painful, can only make the community better. The media belongs to all of us. If we want it to work, we have to work.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

1. David Shaw, "What's the News? White Editors Make the Call," The Los Angeles Times (12/13/90).
2. John Leo, "The demonizing of white men," U.S. News and World Report (4/26/93): 24.
3. Lionel McPherson, "Focus on Racism in the Media" Extra! (July/August 1992).
4. Robert Entman, "Representation and Reality in the Portrayal of Blacks on Network Television News," Journalism Quarterly (Northwestern University Department of Communications, 1993).
5. Andrew Billingsley, Climbing Jacob's Ladder (New York; Simon and Schuster, 1992): 198-200.
6. Tom W. Smith, Ethnic Images, (National Opinion Research Center: University of Chicago, December 1990).

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To find out more about Farai Chideya, go to her site at:
http://www.popandpolitics.com