Jackson Free Press

At the Media Literacy Project's June 7 orientation, project associates began discussing what would be the nature of their summer research. Project associates decided to review four Jackson-area publications and study how each covered youth. The associates chose three weekly papers: the Northside Sun, The Jackson Advocate, and the Madison County Journal for the publication months of April, May, and June, and the state's prevalent daily newspaper, The Clarion-Ledger, for the publication months of May and June.

Project associates mentioned that they wanted to study possible bias in the local media. An appropriate topic, but associates needed to break down that initial inquiry into something more specific. The central question rose out of an early group discussion: "How do local youth get in the newspaper?"

At first, associates and their supporters thought it would be possible to identify all stories that covered or affected local youth, but they soon decided that this was too broad an approach. After all, not all stories about education directly include area youth, and casting too vast a research net would unnecessarily increase the volume of the research.

For a story about young people to be counted, it had to pass certain requirements. First, the associates defined youth as anyone between the ages 13-20, or if age was not listed, anyone in 8th grade through sophomore classification in college. The story had to identify an individual young person, either by name or reference.

In other words, it was not enough to just talk about youth and young people abstractly; the story had to include living, breathing young people within the piece. Finally, the youth in question had to be from the local area, which the associates defined as Rankin, Hinds and Madison counties.

Once the research began, the associates noticed that youth were often identified in pieces much smaller than an actual article. They decided these smaller entities should be studied separately, so they divided the research, with one section for full articles, and another for the set of smaller items. These smaller items were defined as stand-alone pictures that weren't packaged with an article and that only had a small paragraph describing the youth's activity; blurbs, or miniature articles only two or three paragraphs long; and lists, or a series of identified youth with no editorial content, like honor roll, top 10, or star student listings.

The Checklists
Next, they needed to decide what information in the articles was relevant. First, the associates identified demographics as important—categories like race, gender and whether students attended public or private schools. The next category included activities or accomplishments highlighted in each individual story, such as crime, sports, academics, school-related extracurricular activities and community-related extracurricular activities. Associates discussed including categories like "tone" and "fairness," but ultimately decided against it.

"We wanted our rubric to be as neutral as possible; that is, we wanted all of our questions we asked to be able to be answered objectively," Associate Spencer Bowley explains. "This would help us standardize our evaluations of news items—what good was a rubric if two of us could look at the same story and write down different things? ... After all, if a project about bias in the media ends up being biased from the start, it can have no real impact."

The associates researched 100 newspaper issues. After the research was finished, coordinator Bryan Doyle reached out to the papers for responses; editors from every paper except for The Clarion-Ledger agreed to meet with the students.

Dominant Daily, Community Weeklies
There is a decided difference between the coverage of a statewide daily paper like The Clarion-Ledger and community weeklies, as associates' research shows. Printing daily and with much larger space, The Clarion-Ledger has the most chances to cover youth. In studying two months of The Clarion-Ledger, project associates studied 61 individual issues, more than the other publications combined.

With smaller staffs, editors from the three weeklies said that they depend on submissions to bulk up their coverage of area youth. This, they said, had a direct effect on the nature of their coverage. Since so much of the paper depends on photo submissions for youth coverage, and only occasionally covers stories about area youth in the form of full-length features, very few actual youth voices make it into community weeklies. For instance, in a May 1 edition of the Madison County Journal, project associates found seven stand-alone pictures and two honor-roll listings identifying local youth. With only pictures and names displayed throughout the paper, youth are seen, but often not heard.

Editors from all three weeklies said local youth submit stories, but without consistency due to the constant turnover with students leaving college or just losing interest.

The Clarion-Ledger
The Clarion-Ledger had the second highest number of stories identifying youth with 88, and had the most diversity of race and public versus private schools. By far, The CL had the most full-length articles identifying youth (55) and the most articles with a quote from an individual young person (34). Rather than youth coverage being dependent upon local schools to send in materials and photos, the number of full articles with youth voices signifies a deliberate attempt to expand youth coverage by actually interviewing young people.

More stories identifying local youth were sports-related than any other category. For example, in the May 3 issue of The Clarion-Ledger, MLP associates identified three full-length articles identifying youth. The stories: "Arrows Take Aim, Strike First," a story about a baseball game between Clinton and Northwest Rankin High School; "Bash Brothers Deliver Dogs," a story about a Terry High School baseball victory over Oak Grove that also features two Terry teammates who led the team; and "Steen Delivers when it Matters," a story that while featuring a Clarksdale discus thrower also mentions students from Jackson Academy and Veritas Academy.

The Clarion-Ledger was the only publication that had a significant number of items focusing on youth crime with 19 stories on the subject. Of these, eight included youth as alleged perpetrators of the crimes, six as victims, and five included both. None had quotes from victims or perpetrators, though three included the alleged perpetrators' attorneys.

Suggestion: Make a more deliberate attempt to diversify the type of accomplishments covered in the paper, so that the emphasis is not solely on area sports heroes. Include youth voices in stories about crime, as well as other topics.

The Northside Sun
The Northside Sun leads the group of papers with the most items identifying youth, with 112 items. That said, a great majority of the students identified in these articles were white (515) compared to a much smaller number of black youth (39). Of the stories youth found, most focused on students from private schools (87) over public schools (20).

Take the June 12 issue. In this issue, 12 stand-alone pictures feature area youth. All feature white students from private schools, with only two photos with youth of other ethnicities.

The tagline on the front page of the Northside Sun reads "For 40 Years, Covering Northeast Jackson, Madison and Ridgeland." Northside Sun Editor Jimmye Sweat said the paper's market area in the more suburban North Jackson and South Madison County is one factor in the lack of diversity. Also, she said, the Sun is dependent upon readers and schools' public-relations staffers to send in photos to run in the paper. Many area private schools have their own public relations person, tilting the coverage to the private, whiter institutions.

"They submit them to us. That's why there's more private because the public schools don't do as good of a job," she said. "As long as the school in my area sends a good picture with the information and it's exclusive to us, we'll run it."

Bonita Potter, deputy superintendent for instruction for Jackson Public Schools, said JPS lacks comparable resources for a public-relations staffer in each school. JPS has one PR department director and two other full-time staffers. These people not only coordinate the dissemination of press releases for the 59 public schools in the Jackson area, but they are also maintain JPS Instructional Television, which showcases school board meetings and events.

"The PR department is pulled in so many directions, they don't have time to just do news clippings all day for the 59 schools," she said.

Sweat said she's frustrated with Jackson Free Press coverage of the Northside Sun's lack of diversity.

"Some people will look at the Northside Sun, and they say, 'It's just white people from private schools,' and that's such an ignorant statement," she said. "We cover our area. If it just so happens that's what the school sends us, that's not our choice, that's their choice."

The Northside Sun does excel in its diversity in achievements covered: In the three-month coverage period, the Sun highlighted athletics 22 times, school extracurriculars 41, community extracurriculars 13 and academics 36 times. In the April 24 edition of the Sun, 10 stories identifying local youth were found. Four focused on academics, two on athletics, three on community-related extracurricular activities and one on school-related extracurricular activities.

Suggestion: Incorporate youth coverage into the grander editorial vision, with feature stories on local youth. Deliberately make diversity between races and the types of schools a greater priority. Encourage public schools to send submissions from area youth.

Madison County Journal
The Madison County Journal and the Northside Sun have a great deal in common: Both primarily serve the South Madison and North Jackson areas, and youth featured in both publications lean toward white students from private schools. The MCJ had a good deal fewer total items and a slightly better racial diversity. Steven Watson, managing editor of the Madison County Journal, also attributed this to their market (he said that 85 to 95 percent of their subscriptions are from the Madison/Ridgeland area) and the more aggressive push by private-school public-relations staffers to get their students in the paper. He said that within the MCJ coverage area, eight schools are private, and four are public.

The MCJ does not depend on photos as much as the Northside Sun or The Jackson Advocate. They also heavily feature lists of honor-roll students. The MCJ is the only paper that featured a separate graduation special-section insert. Tucked in the May 29 issue, the edition listed the name of every graduating senior for all 12 schools in their coverage area.

Watson said that people shouldn't focus on including one group of people over another. If he wanted to, he said, he could make his paper a lot of of money by placing nothing but pictures of the children of his paper's wealthiest advertisers. "But that's not our job. We're a newspaper. Our job is to report the news. We're the historians of our community," he said.

Again, though, the MSJ focuses on similar issues as the Northside Sun. Like the Sun, their dependence on school-provided pictures and information creates a lack of youth voices in the paper.

"Everybody thinks there's some guy sitting behind my desk with a pencil-thin mustache deciding who gets play and who doesn't. We try to keep it as balanced as possible, but it's just an unwinnable war, because nobody believes they get too much coverage," he said.

Suggestion: Incorporate youth coverage into the editorial vision, with feature stories on local youth. Make diversity between races and the types of schools a priority. Encourage public schools to send submissions from area youth.

The Jackson Advocate
The Jackson Advocate had fewer stories identifying youth than any other publication, though many more would have been counted if youth in various pictures and features were identified by age and/or name.

Other pieces weren't counted because there was no way to identify age. Contributing Editor Earnest McBride said that members of the editorial staff try to get names when they can, but often run into obstacles.

"We have a saying in the business," he said. "That sometimes the official policy is that there is no official policy."

In the research gathered, most Jackson Advocate stories highlighted public schools. For example, in an April 3 edition of The Jackson Advocate, two pieces were found to identify local youth. One was an update on the Mississippi NAACP Youth and College Division, while the other focused on a Provine High School student featured in Ebony magazine.

Both identified youth from public schools. McBride said the editorial staff receives a heads-up from PTA parents, teachers, and principals about school events. When they get these tips, they go check them out.

The tagline on The Jackson Advocate's front page reads, "The Voice of Black Mississippians." It comes as no surprise, then, that The Advocate, through stories and photos, identified a much greater proportion of black youth than white youth. For example, throughout the entire three-month period, MLP associates found only one picture identifying local white youth, a May 29 series of photos that featured the Academic Top Ten's from local public high schools.

Following the trend of responses from the other community weekly editors, McBride said that the editorial staff tries to include youth of other races when they can.

"If you go into these public schools, that's what you see," he said.

Suggestion: Create and enforce a consistent policy that ensures that, at the very least, youth can be identified through a name in their coverage. Prioritize racial and socioeconomic diversity. Interview more youth.

Full Jackson Media Literacy Project package:

Screw Friendship Bracelets
Eyes on the Machine: Jackson Teens Cover the Media
Editors Speak Up
'Yes, We Can'
The Mouth Of Babes
Intentional Bias
Now What?

Related:
David Molina's Blog Post on the Jackson M-Lit's genesis (+ great photos)

Previous Comments

ID

138903

Comment

Good Job! I love it! Thanks JFP and students. This is a great article. You guys should look into publishing it elswhere too, like academic journals.

Author

dd39203

Date

2008-10-10T09:57:17-06:00

ID

138909

Comment

Bryan's already been asked to speak about the project at a Temple University (Philly, PA) conference on media literacy. We just gotta get him a plane ticket.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-10T11:30:18-06:00

ID

138918

Comment

You should ask the C-L to sponsor Bryan. With all those staff cuts and the price increase for papers, I'm sure they have the resources.

Author

dd39203

Date

2008-10-10T13:17:52-06:00

ID

138919

Comment

I'm sure they'd be thrilled to. ;-)

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-10T13:20:06-06:00

ID

138936

Comment

I enjoyed this story, but have one observation: Telling newspapers to add more stories about youth and people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds in newspapers seems like a simple enough, laudable goal, so it's hard to find too much fault with the teenagers' recommendations here. Yet, from a media studies standpoint, smaller metro weeklies have always been somewhat tribal in their focus, whether based on race, religion, politics, geography, age, status, or some other real or imagined demographic. They can never be everything to everybody. So their issue becomes, how do you diversify while remaining true to your core audience? Perhaps one day the Journal will cover Tougaloo College graduations, the Advocate will cover Celtic Fest, the Sun will cover punk rock shows at Sam’s Lounge and the JFP will cover Garden Club luncheons. But I'm not sure I'll hold my breath. Interested youth might do better to work at building their own media: whether that be student publications, blogs, webcasts, or even the quaint old 70s-style “underground” newspaper. It might prove more effective than waiting around for the adults to change their ways.

Author

ed inman

Date

2008-10-10T16:48:55-06:00

ID

138937

Comment

I can deal with medias being loyal to their core audience. I have problems with large media bias that focuses on a particular demographic sector in the negative light.

Author

dd39203

Date

2008-10-10T17:20:23-06:00

ID

138938

Comment

We're not talking about covering punk shows or Garden Club luncheons. We're talking about covering communities fairly. That is, if a paper only covers people of a certain race or from private schools, then it's clearly cherrypicking its area for lesser "tribal" reasons. The good news for diversity in media is that, well, it's about the only thing that will save newspapers in a changing word with aging newspaper demographics. So the answer may well be both "being the media" (which these associates are doing) as well as analyzing and critiquing media that mis- or under-represent them. Either way, the young people get something they're not getting already: engagement in the media. So their issue becomes, how do you diversify while remaining true to your core audience? Well, one would argue that if your "core audience" is "white people" or "black people," you might be a tad out of touch with younger audiences anyway, who expect diversity in their media.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-10T17:30:51-06:00

ID

138939

Comment

Oh, and Ed, I think you'll like our new JAHSPA project. The new Jackson Area High School Press Association is going to help Jackson papers, public and private, do print newspapers or Web sites, or both. We're even providing template sites and server space (courtesy JSU) for any school that wants it, so the cost of newsprint doesn't have to be a barrier. It officially launches this month after months of planning.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-10T17:32:42-06:00

ID

138945

Comment

Well, debating whether the Sun is a "white" paper or the Advocate is a "black" paper probably isn't going to take us very far, but I do applaud the fact that among small weeklies the JFP has done a remarkable (some would say unprecedented) job at trying to be inclusive of all races. I do thank you for that. It was needed in Jackson. And the JAHSPA project sounds like another excellent project.

Author

ed inman

Date

2008-10-10T18:16:44-06:00

ID

138948

Comment

Thanks, Ed. ;-) Yes, JAHSPA is very exciting. We've wanted to do it for a while, but now a bunch of people are coming together to make it happen, as they did with the Media Literacy Project. I'm starting to dig these coalitions. ;-)

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-10T18:41:53-06:00

ID

139012

Comment

Giving credit where it's due: This Clarion-Ledger story today about the horrible tragedy of a young man killed in a car accident at 2 a.m. over the weekend had a much less accusatory tone than they often do, and brings young voices in. We hope that the Ledger will apply the same standard to stories about young people from Jackson. And we send prayers and condolences out to the family.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-13T18:20:40-06:00