The media justice movement advocates for fair and representative minority media content, portrayals, and ownership.

   Minority media content, portrayals, and ownership are critical civil rights issues because the media influence public support for policies associated with minority groups. For example, the media overrepresent the poor as African American. Politicians have exploited this media overrepresentation with the stereotype of the “black welfare queen.” The public thinks that all welfare recipients are black and exploit the welfare system. As a consequence, the public lacks empathy for welfare recipients and withdraws political support for programs that, although are race neutral like welfare, are perceived to overwhelmingly favor the stereotyped minority group.

   Another example involves crime reporting. It is estimated that 25 percent of local news is actually crime stories. It has been said that local news is essentially a version of the reality show, “Cops” (which typically shows minorities being apprehended by law enforcement) “with slightly better-looking characters.” Like the reality show “Cops,” African Americans are overrepresented in local news crime stories. These local newscasts spotlight crimes that involve minority perpetrators and white victims. This interracial focus exaggerates actual crime statistics. Most crime is intraracial, yet if you watch the local news, you would think that every black man rapes, robs, murders, and steals; and all victims of crime are white. Of course that is impossible since most whites live in hyper segregated communities. And the vast majority of African Americans are law abiding citizens. Other studies find that the media show alleged African American perpetrators more often than alleged white perpetrators in a manner that suggests guilt, e.g., being restrained by police or in a mug shot.

   These stereotypical depictions of African Americans may have something to do with 47% of the public responding to General Science Survey stating that they believed the African Americans are prone to violence. The negative media depictions taken in conjunction with the polling data explain the general lack of empathy for ex-cons, the no tolerance policy on crime, the overpopulation of African American men in prison, and a virtual elimination of policies designed to rehabilitate offenders.

   Other minority groups like, Latinos/as, Asian Americans, and American Indians, are virtually unrepresented in news and entertainment programming. It is most surprising in the case of Latinos/as, which are now the largest minority group in the U.S., but less than one-percent of the network news stories are about Latinos/as. This absence also has consequences. It leads the public to think that these groups don’t exist in the U.S. It allows for them to be easily stereotyped as “foreign.” It is not surprising that polling data show that a majority of Americans think that most Latinos/as who immigrate to the U.S. are illegal aliens” when in fact a small minority is in fact “illegal.”

   Given that only 7.76 percent of commercial broadcast stations are owned by minorities, minorities are unable to counter negative media stereotypes in any credible way. Although the prevalence of the Internet and broadband technologies is changing the media landscape, many minorities still do not have Internet access in their homes, and those who do have home access use the technology in different ways than whites. Policymakers relying on the erroneous ubiquitousness of Internet and broadband technologies have made poor policy choices. For example, the FCC, in part, based its relaxation of the media ownership rules on the mistaken belief that these new technologies expanded the media market. The FCC ascribed the white middle class Internet experience to all media consumers. These uninformed policy choices cause unremediated broadcast consolidation to lead to fewer voices in the marketplace and further shrinking of access to diverse content.

   Many minorities are excluded from the broadcast and Internet marketplace of ideas. Diverse media content is important for participation of people of color in the democratic process. Recent studies have shown that the presence of local Spanish-language newscasts and Black-owned radio have been instrumental in increasing minority voter turnout. Other studies have shown that minority-owned broadcasters are more likely to broadcast minority content, thereby providing a forum for issues of consequence to minority voters.

   Here are three actions that the government, the minority community, and journalists can do to correct this serious media underrepresentation and misrepresentation.

   First, the FCC should re-establish race-conscious programs designed to increase the number of minority owners. After Adarand v. Pena, the FCC virtually eliminated all of its affirmative action programs. During the administration of Chairman Kennard, the FCC commissioned several studies that showed that minority broadcasters were discriminated against by the communications industry, capital markets, and advertisers. These studies established prima facie evidence necessary to re-establish race-conscious ownership programs.

   Second, David Honig, the Executive Director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, Janis Hazel, a former Pacifica Radio executive, and Syracuse Law Professor LaVonda Reed-Huff are organizing an effort to establish a Minority Anti-Defamation Coalition. This organization will compile examples of racist hate speech that occurs daily on talk radio and in other venues. Compiling this data will allow the minority community to shine a light on racist and discriminatory media demonstrating to the broadcast owners and the FCC the prevalence of this problem. It will also allow the minority community to take concerted action against broadcasters and advertisers who foster hate speech. For example, the minority community annually spends an estimated $1.3 trillion, and could be educated to refrain from purchasing goods and services from those advertisers who support anti-minority programming.

   Third, journalist’s ethics code needs to specifically ban race discrimination. For example, the Ethics Code of the Society Professional Journalists provides that journalists should: “[a]void stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.” Unlike other professions, Dean Blake Morant of WakeForestLawSchool points out that the journalist professional code fails to expressly include a ban on racial bias; it merely provides that the journalist should “avoid” stereotyping.” Morant recommends that the journalism code of ethics be revised to ban racial bias in reporting. Moreover, the Society of Professional Journalists fails to enforce its code on First Amendment grounds; it needs to enforce it. These changes would give the journalist profession a chance to regulate itself to ensure that they treat race issues in a fair, unbiased and balanced manner.

   Taken together, these three actions by the government, by the minority community, and by the journalist profession will help combat media absences and stereotypes. It would allow a more complete marketplace of ideas so that the government and the public won’t be “bamboozled” in adopting policies because they think they affect (or favor) just a disfavored minority group.