Local News Tracking

Extra Credit Assignment--

By tracking seven news broadcasts, I'd like to say that I was completely shocked by my findings, but I think they just reinforced what I had previously assumed would be the outcome.

First of all, I would like to point out that out of 21 crime stories that I tracked during the A segments, I had less than five that were led-in or reported by an African American reporter. I've grown up in Oklahoma my entire life and watched local news pertaining to the Oklahoma City-metro area. I was unaware to what extent minority groups are underrepresented in the delivery of news through our local media.

Another finding, most of the news stories that I tracked showed a suspect in a mug shot or a still-picture. It did not matter what race the suspect was, a picture was generally shown. I did notice that white males, another comment coming soon about this, were shown more frequently in video (of them walking into the jail, being hauled off to jail, etc. ) as opposed to other races. The second comment about white males, they were most prominently shown in crimes that were of high status. Black and Hispanic males were portrayed in literally every aspect of crime in the 21 crime stories I tracked.

During my tracking, I came across very few crime stories that had to deal with women. I don't know if this is because women are less likely to commit crimes versus men, but it's something I noticed. Ironically, one of the last days I was tracking stories, there was a broadly publicized criminal incident involving a woman. An African American female had robbed four metro banks and was eventually identified and taken into custody. I found it interesting that this was such a popular story, because it had 1) a catchy news element 2) the fact that the suspect had yet to be caught and 3) she was a woman! Definitely a story that all three local news channels were broadcasting because it was so rare.

Here's the video of her arrest (it's around the five minute mark):



I really liked this assignment because it made me pay attention to how people of different races were being portrayed, how neighborhoods were shown, etc. I had never really paid attention to things like that while watching a local broadcast. But, now that I have.. I will never look at local news again without paying attention to the little things.