Gearing Up for the 2012 Presidential Race

Abstract

This study assessed the inclusiveness of New York Times coverage prior to the 2012 presidential election as it relates to the lived experiences of African American voters. The study specifically asked, does the newspaper include substantive information about African American voters, the most pressing social justice concerns facing Black communities, and African American voices? The sampled news discourse is compared to the defining issues for the 21st century identified by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): racial disparity, economic disparity, health care disparity, education disparity, voter empowerment, and criminal justice. Findings reveal a paucity of coverage about African American voters in 2011. Although most of the articles discussed at least one social justice issue, when the scant coverage is considered, it becomes clear that the attention these issues received was severely lacking. African American voice was also seriously underrepresented.

Keywords

African American news coverage journalism democracy representation

To facilitate participatory government, news media are expected to represent a diversity of views and serve the public interest by providing independent information (Croteau & Hoynes, 2006; McChesney, 1999). Unfortunately, rather than attending to the everyday matters that citizens care about, news media often highlight politics that only Washington insiders understand.

Ideally, [the media] are watchdogs of our freedoms, informing citizens about current events and debates and alerting us to potential abuses of power. . . Believers in democracy argue that the robust discussion, debate, and expression of thought that a free press facilitates is more likely to lead to just and competent social and political decisions….What helps people better understand their condition, their communities, and their world is valuable…. (Croteau & Hoynes, pp. 7-8)

Over 10 years ago, McChesney (1999) accused the media of being an antidemocratic force and argued that the very notion that they have a duty to inform the public was on the decline. The general decline in voting behavior (Southwell & Pirch, 2003) suggests political awareness and active citizenship appear to be low, and apathy appears to be high in the United States. African American voting patterns, conversely, are on the rise and “[b]y the 2000 election, the turnout gap between Black and White Americans had virtually evaporated” (p. 906).

Making use of the “democratic public sphere” concept popularized by Habermas (1991), Croteau and Hoynes (2006) contend that four criteria for public interest standards should apply to news media: diversity of political and cultural perspectives and experiences, innovation and creativity, substantive news and entertainment, and independence from government and corporate control. Gerstl-Pepin (2007) acknowledges that most forms of media do not actually make dialogue possible, and that the public sphere often oppresses and excludes members of society based on gender, race, and social economic class. She sees media outlets as a “thin public sphere,” the closest thing society has to Habermas’ ideal. While she refrains from charging news media with overt domination by privileged groups, she admits that messages are impacted by unequal power relationships in society.

The aim of this study is to assess the inclusiveness of the New York Times prior to the 2012 presidential election as it relates to the lived experiences of African American voters. More specifically, the study asked, does the newspaper include the most pressing civil rights concerns facing Black communities and their perspectives about those concerns? This national agenda-setting newspaper was selected as an example of elite news media, which create a newsworthiness framework emulated by the “lower-tier media” (Klaehn, 2002). McCombs (1977) explains the political implications: “the mass media are a causal factor in shaping voters’ personal assessments of what the key issues are in a political campaign” (p. 89).

Indeed, preparedness for electoral politics is heightened when the public has opportunities to gain access to information about key issues and policies relevant to their lives, and think through and contribute their own perspectives to public debates. However, privately owned media may be just as (or more) concerned about making a profit as they are about providing readers with ethnically diverse news.

Politics, power, corporate interests, and financial motives all have an effect on what stories get airtime, how they get covered, which perspective or perspectives are represented, and what information is presented. (Moses, 2007, p. 155)

As press ownership in the country became increasingly concentrated, suspicions mushroomed about whether freedom of the press actually existed.

The social responsibility theory states that the news media has an obligation to serve the public and, in order to accomplish that goal, should remain free from government interference. Claiming the news media could self-regulate, it spells out ethical guidelines for reporters and other news producers. The theory, which grew out of the 1947 Hutchins Commission on Freedom of the Press, buttressed notions of an American press with an enduring duty to serve the public interest, despite the economic interests inherent in their status as businesses (Siebert, Peterson & Schramm, 1956). The report asserted that the public deserves truthful and inclusive coverage of events, access to opposing views, and “a means of projecting the opinions and attitudes of the groups in the society to one another” (Nerone, 1994, p. 197). Fulfilling these responsibilities requires journalists to help readers find meaning in news stories by providing essential background information, historical context, and meaningful examples.

Over 30 years ago, sociologist Gaye Tuchman (1978) characterized news as a social construction, declaring that by the very act of establishing an event as news, news organizations construct reality. She explained that news stories are not intrinsically newsworthy; rather, newsworthiness is a negotiated process among those who gather and produce it. Whether or not an event is deemed newsworthy triggers a different pace of work and professional approach among journalists. Although many newspaper editors perceive minority coverage as adequate, subtle, and overt racism persists (Campbell, 1995; Larson, 2006). Invisibility in the news is among the chief of these concerns:

Only 3.4% of more than 67,000 national news reports that Pew [Research Center] reviewed between February 2009 and February 2010 gave “significant” mention to African Americans (1.9%), Asian-Americans (0.2%) or Hispanics (1.3%). Three storylines represented more than 40% of all the stories that significantly mentioned African Americans: the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates (19.4%), the Obama presidency (17.6%), and the death of Michael Jackson (5%). (González & Torres, 2011)

As candidates vied for the Republican presidential nomination and Barack Obama prepared to secure a second term in the 2012 election, how did the New York Times meet its social responsibility to cover the key concerns and perspectives of African Americans?

Even allegedly “liberal” newspapers are constrained in their coverage of minorities. Rodriquez (2009) conducted an analysis of award-winning writing on diversity in mainstream newspapers and found that “liberal” news intended to serve the interest of minorities is still constrained by “contradictions” and “ethnocentric assumptions” (p. 183). The reporters tended to prefer middle class sources who personify the American Dream or working class sources who strive to attain it. The American Dream master narrative dictates source selection and rhetorical emphasis, leaving “little or no room for the articulation of political discourses that transcend individual concerns” (pp. 181-182). Rodriquez describes the news discourse in her study as “liberal imaginary” because while the journalists do not actually avoid racial inequality, their narratives “privilege personal solutions made by individuals pursuing what seem to be autonomous, independent decisions. . . . Critique of the economic and political establishment that produces inequality is lost in the final analysis” (p. 182). By assigning more authority to individual responsibility, “collective experiences are . . . suppressed” (p. 182).

Review of the Literature

Race and News Media Coverage

Larger groups are more likely to be politically mobilized than smaller ones (Oberholzer-Gee & Waldfogel, 2005). Since many news media outlets target larger groups, political candidates can more easily reach those groups with their campaign messages. Furthermore, “[a] strong regularity is that people who receive campaign messages are more likely to turn out” (p. 76). However, the news media have been largely unwilling and unable to change their workforce, agenda, and reporting in the face of an increasingly culturally diverse society (Byerly & Wilson, 2009). Newsrooms and news agendas remain oriented toward the shrinking White majority, assert Byerly and Wilson. Despite progress since the 1960’s, African Americans and issues important to them have historically been excluded from American news coverage (Larson, 2006; Owens, 2008). While largely absent from “hard news,” coverage about African Americans often focuses on sports, entertainment, and crime news. Blacks are not the main focus of most news coverage in which they appear, and when they are covered at all, the stories are likely to be about race (Larson, 2006). The implications of such skewed coverage are serious. According to Larson,

[h]ard news that treats racial minorities as the main subject focuses on their threat to the social structure and their opposition to Whites. Thus, racial minorities often appear in crime stories. . . [suggesting] that minorities are dangerous to Whites. (p. 82)

The sources journalists rely on—often government and business representatives—are almost exclusively White as well (Owens, 2008). African Americans are most likely to be employed as sources when journalists interview ‘the man or woman on the street’ or cover stories about accidents, disasters, and weather. Larson argues that restricting the selection of African Americans to stories explicitly about race serves to limit their representation as knowledgeable authorities on other issues. Furthermore, advertisers influence stories that are both included and excluded because “news [is] tailored to certain lucrative audiences” (Larson, 2006, p. 85). Another explanation for the underreporting of African Americans is that almost 90% of network news reporters are White (Owens, 2008). According to some scholars, the public relies upon media representations to get to know ethnic groups with whom they have little or no direct contact (Schiffman & Subervi-Vélez, 2001). Policymaking, say Schiffman and Subervi-Vélez, is impacted by stereotypical coverage about groups with whom many decision makers have little direct contact.

Perhaps journalists will pay more attention to African American voters’ concerns when political candidates do. Writing after President Obama’s first 100 days in office in 2008, Ford, Johnson, and Maxwell (2010) predicted maintenance of the broad coalition of support that ushered him into the White House,

especially maintaining support in the Black community, will require Obama to make the kinds of decisions that will benefit the generation that seeks power in his wake…Obama must continue making his administration accessible through social networking, insist upon racial tolerance, and maintain his relationship with the Black electorate. . . Obama must be careful not to discount or ignore the defining issues of structural racism that still plague America, such as disparities in incarceration rates and in access to health care. (p. 480)

The year before the 2012 election, as presidential hopefuls began to woo voters, were “defining issues” for African Americans represented in news coverage about President Obama or Republican candidates’ campaigns?

African American Voters

There is plenty of evidence that Blacks are an important electorate. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, there are 42 million African Americans in the United States, representing 13.6% of the total U.S. population (Rastogi, Johnson, Hoeffel, Drewery, 2011). The Black population increased from 2000 to 2010 in every state (excluding the District of Columbia), though not at the pace of some other groups. Between 1980 and 2000, the Asian population tripled and the Hispanic population more than doubled (Hobbs & Stoops, 2002). Some research suggests, “[o]ne of the most profound changes in America’s demography this century will be its shifting racial and ethnic makeup” (Frey, 2008, p. 79). After the 2000 presidential race, the Hispanic population became a significant “target of opportunity” (p. 80), but Blacks continued to be perceived as diehard Democrats. Noting that 14 states are already below or near 60% White, Frey envisions a nation in a demographic flux due to immigrant dispersion and the sustained growth and southward migration of Blacks. The implications for these shifts, he predicts, “are only at the beginning of what is likely to be a long transformation” (p. 81). Still, the nation’s population is a lot more diverse than its voters: 77% of Whites are eligible voters, compared to 66% of Black, 50% of Asian, and 39% of Hispanic residents. Blacks are more likely to register and vote than Hispanics and Asians.

Blacks are an important economic group as well. Based on current spending, Blacks are expected to have a buying power over US$1trillion by 2015 (Orwel, 2012). But wealth is more unequally distributed than income (Yates, 2007). Some scholars maintain that government policies that have impaired the ability of Blacks to accumulate wealth, along with low levels of entrepreneurship, and racial inequality have “cemented Blacks to the bottom of America’s economic hierarchy in regards to wealth” (Oliver and Shapiro, 2006, p. 207). In 2001, “[t]he median financial wealth (holdings of stocks, bonds, cash, and the like) of Blacks was a paltry $1,100; for Whites it was $42,100” (Yates, 2007, p. 28). Markedly lower access to inheritances and income differences, not savings patterns, account for the Black-White wealth gap (Darity & Nicholson, 2005). Income and poverty in the United States vary considerably by race. By 2000, “31.2 percent of Blacks and 40.4 percent of Latinos in contrast to 20 percent of White workers” were low-wage workers (Shulman, 2009, p. 97). In 2003 “poverty rates for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics were 10.5, 24.4, and 22.5 percent respectively” (Yates, 2007, p. 25).

Institutionalized inequities are real in the United States—in the criminal justice system, the job market, housing, education, and elsewhere in society. Black youth are almost 50 times as likely as their White peers to be incarcerated for a first-time drug offense, even when circumstances are the same (Wise, 2012). African Americans with a college degree are twice as likely as Whites to be unemployed and “1.2 million instances of overt job discrimination occur annually against Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans, affecting as many as one-third of all job searches by people of color in the United States” (Wise, 2012, p. 30). Millions of race-based housing discrimination cases (e.g., higher cost loans) are reported every year. Teachers in predominantly African American schools are more likely to be inexperienced and uncertified and their schools are more likely to be underfunded and lack resources. It is not hard to imagine that these structural inequities influence African Americans’ voting decisions.

It is not uncommon to hear people suggest that African American President Barack Obama had the Black vote “in the bag” (Block, 2011). Along with 67% of Hispanic voters, 62% of Asian American voters, and 66% of other non-White voters, 95% of African American voters supported Obama in 2008 (Taylor, 2011). This level of support among minority groups increased in 2012 (Pilkington, 2012). Despite the overall decline in voter turnout attributed to Americans’ increased cynicism, African American voting appears to be stimulated by alienation, just as economic hardship has been shown to increase voting (Southwell & Pirch, 2003). Given a near 20% Black jobless rate (double the national average; Darity, 2010), combined with the Republican efforts to remove Obama from office, their assessment has particular significance.

Although American voting patterns are well documented, a lot less is known about the African American voter; they are routinely “ignored because they have the most homogeneous partisan preferences” (Kidd, Diggs, Farooq, & Murray, 2007, p. 165). Their steadfast support for the Democratic Party is intrinsically tied to the party’s civil rights positions. While some researchers acknowledge the influence of this level of party loyalty, “it is not clear from an empirical perspective whether the strong influence of Democratic Party identification is in reality a strong aversion to the Republican Party” (Kidd et al., 2007, p. 174). Others insist that partisanship is a stronger predictor of voting patterns than race for African Americans, as evidenced by a number of Gubernatorial and Congressional races in which Black Republican, and Independent candidates were unable to entice African American voters (Taylor, 2011).

However, African American voting choices reflect race consciousness and group identity, not simply party loyalty (Tate, 2010; Dawson, 1995). Black political choice is constrained by the lack of competition between the two major political parties for the African American vote (Dawson, 1995). This is “due in part to the perception that African Americans do not have any options other than the Democratic party and in part to the belief shared by leaders of both parties that competition for the White vote is more important and at odds with competition for the Black vote” (p. 131). Some research cites examples of African American political unity, including their overwhelming preference for presidential candidate Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, despite the fact that his agenda was considerably out of step with the Democratic Party and their disdain for the extremely popular president Ronald Reagan (Dawson, 1995).

Perceptions of group interests influence African American political behavior (Tate, 2010). For example, while Whites and other groups are split on the issue of affirmative action, a majority of Blacks believe such programs should continue. Indeed, many African Americans report that, as a group, they continue to be victimized by racial discrimination. A “strong racial divide” also exists on the issue of paying Blacks reparations for slavery; a majority of Blacks are in favor of the government paying Blacks who descended from slaves, while almost 90% of Whites and other minorities are strongly opposed to such a policy (Tate, 2010, p. 59).

Black elected officials are opinion leaders in the African American community: “Blacks are vitally linked to their leaders—the vast majority of whom are Black Democrats—who in turn are also linked to the national Democratic Party and its political agenda” (Tate, 2010, p. 3). In fact, as radical Black leadership has declined, Black public opinion has shifted closer to the political center (Tate, 2010). Tate’s political incorporation theory contends that African Americans’ increasing participation in mainstream politics has resulted in support for a more moderate, bipartisan agenda. Tate argues that today’s “incorporated” African American leaders are less liberal because they are expected to represent broader interests and rely on a more conservative party machine for positions of power.

Some scholars have identified evidence of a conservative shift among African Americans (Tate, 2010, p. 151). Black support for welfare has shifted from very strong to moderately strong since the early 1970s. Although a majority of African Americans continue to oppose the death penalty (unlike Whites and other minorities), support for the rights of suspects has declined and their support for “three strikes” laws has increased. Despite liberalized public opinion on women’s and gay rights, “[t]here is evidence that Blacks remain to the political right of Whites and other minorities on [many] social and cultural issues, such as euthanasia, end-of-life decisions, and school prayer” (p. 153). Only 10% of African Americans support increasing legal immigration; their views on this issue are less liberal than Latinos and more conservative than Whites and Asians.

Conceptual Framework

The purpose of this study is to examine how the New York Times provides inclusive coverage by addressing issues particularly relevant to the African American electorate. More specifically, the investigation seeks to reveal news representations about some of the social issues that are most urgent for African American voters and the extent to which their voice is reflected in that coverage. The extent to which their critical concerns are valued in this society can be measured, in part, by their visibility in the news. Do journalists allow African Americans to express these concerns for themselves? If outside “experts” are used as sources, how do they interpret or frame the issues? “To the extent that minorities are excluded from the news and their voices are not heard, their issues and arguments are not part of the public debate” (Larson, p. 88).

Writing about the ambiguous topic “voice,” Watts (2001) offers refinement:

. . .I posit the concept of “voice” as a relational phenomenon occurring in discourse. . . [It is] constitutive of ethical and emotional dimensions that make it an answerable phenomenon. Thus, “voice” is the enunciation and acknowledgement of the obligations and anxieties of living in community with others. (p. 180)

According to Couldry (2010), the self-expression of narratives is a vital means by which people’s lived experiences and worldview are represented in society. Points of view that are routinely marginalized are the least likely to set political agendas.

Kidd et al. (2007), citing Tate, maintain that African Americans are “strongly group oriented and concerned about what happens to Blacks as a group” (p. 175). Citing Abrahams, Karenga, and Kochman, Hecht, Jackson, and Ribeau (2003) state that “the dialectic force” of collective responsibility is “common in African American communities” (p. 159). Since both individual and collective voices represent any community, recognizing the presence of both individual Black sources and group concerns in news media is worthwhile. This study uses defining issues for the 21st century in the mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one of the oldest and most well-respected African American civil rights institutions, to represent the collective African American voice. To determine the extent to which collective African American voice is articulated, the focal points in that mission statement (i.e., racial, economic, health care, education disparities, voter empowerment, and criminal justice) are compared to the sampled news discourse. Progressive political change requires the public acknowledgement of the ethical and emotional entailments of a civil rights agenda. Hopefully, through studies such as this one, a clearer picture will emerge about how “welcome” social justice objectives are in mainstream news coverage.

Research Questions

This study sought to answer the following research questions:

Research Question (RQ1): Do New York Times pre-2012 election articles emphasize information about African American voters?

Research Question (RQ2): Does New York Times coverage about African American voters discuss social justice issues (racial discrimination, economic disparity, health care disparity, education disparity, voter empowerment, and the criminal justice system) in stories preceding the 2012 election?

Research Question (RQ3): Are African American voices represented in the use of sources in New York Times coverage about African American voters preceding the 2012 election?

Method

For this qualitative study, New York Times articles published between January 1 and December 31, 2011, which included references to African American voters and the 2012 election, were selected for analysis. Using Lexis-Lexis and the search terms “African Americans” and “2012 election” and “Blacks” and “2012 election” hundreds of articles were initially located. After the investigator reviewed these results multiple times, 27 articles were found that directly or indirectly referenced both the election and Black voters; only 15 of those articles contained more than a passing reference to these topics and were therefore selected for analysis. By contrast, there were several hundred news stories about the 2012 election in general. This investigation employed qualitative content analysis to determine the specific issues covered in the articles, the extent to which they reflect social justice concerns, and the extent to which African Americans were used as sources.

Although the sample of 15 articles was subjected to qualitative analysis, in some instances, numerical information is provided to describe frequency. The articles were first summarized for focus, topics, and main ideas, and the presence of multiple perspectives. Articles were next coded for type of content (i.e., news, op-ed, editorial), page, number of words, sources, and social justice concern (i.e., mentioned at least once). The presence and “weight” of the African American individual voice was determined with the number and type of individual sources used by the journalists. Collective voice was determined in two ways. The first was by noting whether African American organizational sources were used in stories. The second was by noting whether and how stories addressed racial discrimination, economic disparity, health care disparity, education disparity, voter empowerment, and criminal justice.

Findings

In terms of the type of content in the sample, eight articles were news, six were op-eds, and one was an editorial. Only four articles in the sample enjoyed the high visibility accorded to the front page, where priority news items are placed. Since prominently displayed news garners more public attention, the issues discussed in them are more likely to be perceived as worthy of public discussion and action.

The analysis of news content revealed important findings, the most important of which is the absence of coverage. RQ1 asked whether there was substantive information about African American voters in the coverage. Findings reveal a paucity of coverage about African American voters in the period leading up to the 2012 election. Only 15 articles about the 2012 presidential race that were published in the New York Times in 2011 included substantive information about Black voters. This number would have been substantially lower without the spotlight on discriminatory new voting laws, which accounted for five of the stories. There are repercussions in terms of public response associated with this minimal coverage. Not all voters have their minds made up because of partisan allegiance; “political information may be important right up to the day of election” (Shaw & Clemmer, 1977, p. 44).

This invisibility and marginalization of African Americans corresponds with a wealth of research detailing an ongoing pattern of exclusion from political news (e.g., Campbell, 1995; Dates & Barlow, 1990; González & Torres, 2011; Larson, 2006).

[Th]e paucity of coverage of minorities and minority life contributes to a myth of marginalization—people of color exist at the periphery of mainstream society and do not merit the attention granted to Whites. (Campbell, 1995, p. 57)

Both news coverage and the absence of coverage have agenda setting and priming effects, and only those issues that receive extensive attention gain entry into public debate (Larson, 2006). Agenda setting involves “defining problems worthy of public and government attention” (Entman, 2007, p. 164), including advancing particular policies. Priming is “the intended effect of strategic actors’ framing activities” (p. 165). For example, the way a social problem is covered in the news may prime readers to view certain groups or entities as the cause of that problem (Larson, 2006). The lack of substantive coverage about African American voters constrains the public’s understanding of the collective experiences—and policy needs—of this electorate.

RQ2 asked whether core social justice issues were addressed in the sample of news articles. The fact that most (13 out of 15) of the articles discussed at least one of the social justice issues seems to suggest that when African American voters are in the news, so are their collective social problems. However, when the scant coverage of this electorate is considered, it becomes clear that the attention these issues received was severely lacking. Had Republican majorities in many jurisdictions not emboldened them to pass egregious voting laws in 2011, coverage about the social justice issues affecting the lives of many African Americans would have been almost nil.

The New York Times responsibly made the public aware of race-related threats to African American voter empowerment. Yet, the same cannot be said about half of the critical issues examined (health care disparity, criminal justice, and education disparities). The first two appeared only once in an entire year—in the same article (Harwood, 2011). In Harwood’s story, two health care disparities are mentioned, but not explained: “Black children are significantly more likely to die before their first birthday or to become obese.” Similarly, inequity in the criminal justice system is neither expounded upon, nor even accorded an entire sentence: “In school, Black children are more likely to be held back, drop out of school or end up in prison.” Education disparity was mentioned in two stories; the previous sentence represents the extent to which the issue was addressed in one. Despite the title of the second article, “Obama Aims at Disparity in Education” (Cooper, 2011, April 7), the issue is not its central focus. It is briefly mentioned at the beginning of the story, when President Obama calls educational equity the “civil rights issue of our time.” The social justice issue is not mentioned again until the end of the article, when Education Secretary Arne Duncan “said he had been traveling with Mr. Sharpton to reduce the high school dropout rate.”

Economic disparity was mentioned in six of the 15 news stories, and like the previous examples, it was usually commented on fleetingly and without explanation. One example (Edsall, 2011, November 27) is part of a description of Obama’s coalition: a “substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African American and Hispanic.” Another remarks on “a school of thought in Washington that Mr. Obama’s support among Blacks has weakened because of the poor economy and a sense of unmet expectations” (Cooper, 2011 October 27).

The extent to which these social problems are represented in the news is a reflection of the restricted inclusion of collective Black voice. Little urgency is accorded to issues that are not “answerable phenomenon”—those that remain unacknowledged publicly. Only the subjects of racial disparity and voter empowerment were raised in the majority of the articles (nine and eight times respectively)—an outcome of voter suppression efforts during a campaign season. Despite startling and disproportionate African American incarceration rates in the United States (Butler, 2010), the criminal justice system was only taken up once in the New York Times’ preelection coverage. Similarly, virtually no attention was given to health-related inequality, notwithstanding the well-documented urgency of race-related health disparities in Black communities (Dean & Gilbert, 2010). Voice, as Couldry (2010) explains it, is a value used to set priorities in society. Social problems only become political priorities when the public is made aware of them. Thus, the scant treatment of social justice issues in news coverage about African American voters not only camouflages the nation’s enduring inequities, but also counteracts efforts to activate essential policy discussions.

RQ3 asked about the representation of African American voices through the use of individual and organizational sources. The findings clearly reveal that African American voice was seriously underrepresented in the New York Times coverage examined. Out of a total of 67 sources, just 17 were African American—14 men, two women, and one organization. Following the historic 2008 election of Barack Obama, the first African American president, the marginalization of opinions from this electorate—especially Black women’s—is clearly evident. The president was the most frequently used African American source (four times). For the first 9 months of 2011, excluding the president, only three African American sources were quoted in the coverage; these were the Children’s Defense Fund, Democratic political consultant Donna Brazile, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Only one journalist (an African American, Helene Cooper) used all African American sources in an article (“Black support for Obama is steady and strong”), including a political expert—a significant inclusion because journalists rarely use African American political experts as sources (Larson, 2006). In election coverage about their own communities, African American voices other than the president’s represented only 19% of all sources. Not surprisingly, the perspectives expressed were most often from official sources, most of whom were White—elected officials, government representatives, and so forth—a disturbing trend recognized throughout news media research. Sources determine the perspectives that get expressed. For instance, in one story (Bai, 2011), Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan states that if there are “dark currents” running through attacks on President Obama, they have to do with populism not racism.

A closer look at a few of the articles is warranted to render a clearer picture of the news content. The one article (Harwood, 2011) which made references to all six of the social justice issues targeted was published on a particularly historic Dr. Martin L. King Day, the year the long-awaited 30-foot monument to the leader was unveiled on the National Mall. Harwood (2011) recounts President Obama’s popular speech after the Tucson mass shootings in which Congresswoman Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head a year earlier. He suggests that Obama’s words are especially poignant given the timing around Dr. King’s holiday; like the Congresswoman, Dr. King had been shot in the head. “Halfway through the term of the nation’s first African American president, there is little sign of improvement in the dramatically unequal life prospects of Black children,” reports Harwood.

In terms of voice, three of the five sources in Harwood’s piece represented African Americans (including the president). African American political analyst Donna Brazile is quoted several times, saying our society is not “postracial” and “one could argue race relations have gotten worse” given the “nasty turn” of late. Much of the article is devoted to citing alarming findings from a Children’s Defense Fund study and other reports on the number of African American children born into poverty and into two parent households, as well as statistics on Black under-employment and income inequality. For instance, “Four in 10 Black children are born into poverty [while fewer] than one in 10 White children are.” And “[f]ully 40% [of Black workers], nearly twice the rate among Whites, are . . . ‘underutilized’ in the labor force—either unemployed or underemployed.” Injecting his own view that President Obama should avoid racial matters, the journalist states that African Americans benefitted economically and politically from Bill Clinton’s avoidance of “race-specific rhetoric.”

As mentioned previously, a third of the 15 articles in this study focused primarily on the recent enactment of new voter registration laws in Republican-controlled legislatures. Interestingly, although the journalist of one front page report (Cooper, 2011, October 3) is adamant “there is little doubt” the laws “will alter the voting landscape,” not one of the social equity issues is addressed. In the story headlined “G.O.P. Legislators Move to Tighten Rules on Voting” (Alvarez, 2011), also appearing on the front page, four social justice items were represented—racial, economic, education disparities, and voter empowerment. The author reflects both sides of the voting laws issue, explaining that Republicans say the changes are intended to reduce voter impersonation fraud, while Democrats argue that this fear is not backed by evidence and “echoes of the Jim Crow laws. . .” According to Alvarez, election experts predict that several groups will be adversely affected by new voting laws, including minorities, the poor, elders, and students “who tend to skew Democratic.” As illustrated in this example, African Americans were one of several demographic groups highlighted in the articles about new voting laws. The journalist’s sources include a governor, members of Congress, and a professor, but like the previous story, no African Americans.

The single editorial in the sample emphasized the laws’ potential impact on students (who Republicans fear are too liberal), because their school identification and college addresses would become barriers at the voting booth in some states. While some of these articles frame the tougher voting laws as anti-Democratic Party, the commentary by civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis centers on their racist nature. African American voters will be affected disproportionately by these laws, he insists, because “as many as 25 percent of African Americans lack acceptable identification.”

One of Cooper’s articles (2011, October 27) disputes Washington insiders’ talk of diminishing African American support for President Obama. She uniquely provided a forum for the perspectives of everyday African American voters and its front page position heightened the attention it received. She reports, for example, on the affirmative response of an African American truck driver who is asked whether he plans to vote for President Obama again: “I’d almost like to see someone else win though. Maybe then they’ll see how much better Obama was than whoever will come after him.” Describing an emotional connection between the Black electorate and Obama that “seems unshakable,” Cooper recounts tears that well up in the eyes of an elementary school principal as she describes the time she saw Obama in 2008. While it is true that African American sources are usually “the man or woman on the street” instead of experts (Larson, 2006), in this case, self-expressed narratives facilitated the representation of the lived experiences of African American voters.

Three social justice issues—economic disparity, education disparity, and voter empowerment—are raised in the shortest column (440 words) examined, one of two articles in the sample written by Helene Cooper (2011, April 7). Of the five sources she relied on for her coverage, two were Black, yet none represented sources outside the Obama administration. Either alone or along with voter empowerment, the issue of racial disparity was represented in several additional articles. In one titled “Race and Republican Attacks on Obama” (Bai, 2011), none of the five sources mentioned were African Americans. In it, the author contrasts various journalists’ interpretations of Newt Gingrich’s racial comments and suggests George Bush’s Willie Horton depiction was more racist than anything Obama has had to face from Republicans. The author argues that racial alienation just does not make good politics and may “offend half the public.”

In the fourth and final front page article (Zeleny & Rutenberg, 2011), the writers state that the early focus in Obama’s campaign will be in states with “surging populations of Hispanics and Blacks”—Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Again, there are no African American sources other than the president.

Well before the Republican field of candidates narrowed to Mitt Romney, an op-ed. (Blow, 2011, April 23) by another African American journalist expressed disdain for “the racial assumptions and panderings” of Donald Trump. The writer insists that “the right is making itself smaller by applauding [Trump], and, in doing so, forfeiting what little moral and intellectual standing that they have left.” Blow also wrote one of the two articles that did not touch on any social justice issues, “Rubik’s Cube of Re-elections” (2011, April 9). This time he considers the challenge Obama faces getting reelected and maintaining minority support. Using the president as his only African American source, he concludes that “Obama’s best chances of winning re-election may well hinge on his ability to re-energize and engage . . . Blacks and Hispanics.” While he observes that Obama’s approval ratings among Blacks and Latinos are 85% and 54% respectively (down from 95% and 73%), he does not explain why African American support has declined. Declining Hispanic support, on the other hand, is attributed to Obama’s failure to keep his campaign promise regarding introducing comprehensive immigration reform during his first year in office.

The findings in the present study support prior news media research (e.g., Campbell, 1995; Dates & Barlow, 1990; González & Torres, 2011; Larson, 2006) on the placement of African American issues in a position of marginal importance and the invisibility of African American sources. They lay the groundwork for further research to determine if similar patterns would emerge in studies of preelection coverage using different news media.

Conclusion

The foregoing findings show that as candidates geared up for the 2012 presidential race, New York Times journalists rarely focused on the African American voter. African Americans’ strong allegiance to the Democratic Party and overwhelming support for President Obama seem to have newsmakers (and candidates) convinced that this population does not require as much attention as other groups more likely to determine the outcome of the election. Three standards for socially responsible media (Croteau and Hoynes, 2006) were not met in this collection of news: diversity, substance, and independence. Overall, diverse political and cultural perspectives and experiences were not represented; there was insufficient substantive news regarding significant social justice issues affecting African American voters. Socially responsible reporting requires not only addressing “tough” social issues like racism, but also providing deeper meaning—something lacking when one reporter neglected to analyze why President Obama’s approval rating among African Americans had declined. On the other hand, readers were provided with deeper meaning when journalists (Edsall, 2011; Robertson, 2011) provided historical context to explain the disappearance of Southern White voters from the Democratic Party. At times, the newspaper’s reporting on racism had an almost supermarket tabloid quality.

When reporters did cover the African American electorate, they almost never afforded them an opportunity to speak for themselves and rarely relied on Black experts or organizations. If socially responsible news welcomes the expression of diverse groups of people, the scarcity of both individual and organizational African American sources in this sample, represents the New York Times’ failure to provide readers with access to relevant voices. The overreliance on so-called “official” sources suggests the reporting was not free from government influence. Reliance on such sources is tantamount to government and big business actually creating the news through reports, press releases, and speeches. This “official” filter legitimates certain sources and deems some topics credible and newsworthy and others inconsequential (Klaehn, 2002).

As one Times writer, Touré (2011) notes, these days, pervasive use of words like postracial, race card, reverse racism, and race baiter “feed the notion that it’s O.K. to be somnambulant about race or even aggressively dismissive of it.” Silencing discussions about race and the standpoints of racial minorities has tremendous implications for social justice advocates’ ability to focus public attention on inequality. For instance, Butler’s (2010) analysis of a 100 years of race and crime, questions, “[w]hether racial justice can be accomplished in a legal and political climate that rebuffs race discourse” (p. 1060). Despite the idealistic and indispensable democratic purposes of news media described earlier, a less optimistic point of view proposes, “their job is not to inform but to disinform, not to advance democratic discourse but to dilute and mute it” (Parenti, 2002, p. 66). How much support can African Americans and other proponents of social equality garner for needed reforms when their issues are largely hidden from public view?

The small amount of Times coverage about African American voters in 2011 was heavily focused on voter suppression, an issue which was represented in a responsible manner. Unequal life chances for Blacks, the myth of a postracial society, the potential for racist commentary to backfire on Republicans, and the importance of Obama’s most faithful supporters to his chances for reelection were also mentioned, though only rarely. In fact, “faithful followers” seems to have become a synonym for African American voters.

While African Americans and other minorities use both mainstream and alternative news sources, they tend to trust “their own,” which are much more likely to provide content targeting their cultural group (Byerly & Wilson, 2009). However, as Byerly and Wilson observe, because in many markets there is limited (and in some places no) access to African American media, they are left to rely on mainstream news. To move from comprehensive awareness building to widespread problem solving, the representation of social justice issues affecting the Black community must increase for all segments of society, not just African Americans. Thus, much more needs to be done—in schools of journalism, media outlets, and within Black community-based organizations—to create more equitable coverage of African Americans in mainstream political news. Such strategies warrant a study of their own. Needless to say, future studies should explore the extent to which issues of importance to African American citizens are included in a variety of news, not just election coverage. Comparisons of a variety of mainstream, public, and alternative news sites, to include broadcast, print, and online venues, would be useful. The enactment of recent discriminatory voting laws accounts for most of the racial disparity news identified in this study. Without such timely triggers, how little attention do journalists pay to issues important to the African American voter?

As demographic trends transform this nation into one in which minorities collectively comprise the majority of the population, the new majority is likely to become even more politically mobilized. It may be harder to silence race-related news discourse at that time, but messages will likely continue to be impacted by unequal power relationships. It is even conceivable that news consumers may be subjected to more racist, Tea party-like “take our country back” messages as the country becomes more diverse. Embracing ethnically diverse voices alone will not guarantee a news focus on persistent racial disparities or the moral responsibility to deal with them. To guarantee public deliberation about racial disparities, news organizations like the New York Times must be substantially committed to covering the interests of an increasingly diverse public.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

April E. Copes earned her PhD in the Department of Communication and Culture at Howard University. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and English at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD. Her research interests include political communication, intercultural communication, and mass media representations of race, gender, class, education, and labor.

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