Ethnic Media 101: Part IV in an ongoing series

Central Michigan University professor Alice A. Tait teaches JRN 380, Racial Diversity: Mass Media’s Role, which covers the media’s portrayal of racial groups and gender from historical and contemporary perspectives in addition to exploring the racial groups' self-portrayals in their own media. Tait created this course in 1984 at the University of Detroit and ten years later it was accepted in the communications department at Central Michigan University as a permanent course. It's wildly popular and as a result, is offered every spring and fall semester.

KD: What indications inspired the need for the course?
AT: Well, there was a need to look at how African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans were portrayed in mass media. There was a lot of information and a lot of discussion of the media’s coverage especially at that time of African Americans before the course began at Central. Then the interest broadened in terms of all of these groups; there was simply a lot of discussion about how the media was portraying these groups and the representation of these groups in the industry. It was a discussion that had started way back in the 60s even before the Kerner Commission report.

KD: Initiating a course about race and media seems like it was a pretty progressive idea in 1984. Did you feel any resistance from the department when you initially created the course?
AT: I did not receive any resistance. In fact, in '84-85 when I developed the course, it was my chair who suggest it be taught. When I came to CMU there was no resistance. I taught it first as a special topics course. About that time, ACEJMC was requiring departments, before they could become accredited, to provide evidence that they were integrating information about the coverage of these groups in the curriculum.

That was one driving force and also the need to have courses that look at the effects of racism and discrimination in general at the university, for accreditation purposes. The incentive that came from the University wanting to be accredited also helped. And the incentive from the university to have a group of courses that would satisfy studies of racism and cultural diversity in the U.S. also helped. With those two forces and the general push in society at that time, the political climate, it was a natural. It’s been a very profitable course for the department. Each semester since 1994 we've taught at least 6 sections every semester with 70 students or more enrolled in the course.

KD: Do you know of any impact it has had thus far, in terms of encouraging students to pursue careers in ethnic media?
Not particularly. We do have a summer program for high school students who gain exposure to ethnic media through the program.

KD: Do you see, for the future, the possibility of developing a course that is completely devoted to studying ethnic media at CMU?
I can see that happening. For example, we at Central are trying to get an African American studies minor, and I can see having a course called Ethnic Media in America that's offered as a journalism, ethnic studies and African American studies credit.

Alice Tait is an award-winning professor of journalism at Central Michigan University

Ethnic Media Watch

San Jose Mercury News closes Nuevo Mundo, sells Viet Mercury

Though interest and popularity of Spanish language media has experienced a surge in the past few years, Knight Ridder announced October 21st it would be putting Nuevo Mundo to bed for good and replacing it with Fronteras de la Noticia, a Spanish-language daily that is produced in Mexico and outsourced to 14 U.S. markets, New America Media reports. The liquidation of its 9-year-old Spanish language weekly coincides with news of a possible sale of Knight Ridder's entire media outlet as well as an American Society of Newspaper Editors study released last month that reported a 2.6 percent overall drop in weekday circulation for most of the country's 20 largest dailies. Critics, including the National Association of Hispanic journalists have voiced concerns that replacing local ethnic papers with Spanish language papers that only have two pages of local editorial content will cost the community a paper that serves its specific needs as well as Latino journalists jobs and the quality reporting the Spanish-speaking Silicon Valley community is accustom to. In the NAM article, Felix Gutierrez, professor of journalism at USC's Annenberg School for Communication says the corporatization of Spanish language media is becoming a trend throughout the news industry. "Anytime you can produce for pesos and sell for dollars," he said, "you're going to make money."

In the same press release, Knight Ridder announced the sale of its Vietnamese language weekly, the No. 1-read publication in that language, Pacific News Service reported. Though the Vietnamese community there has two handfuls of options when it comes to hearing and reading news in its native tongue, Viet Mercury stood out in a seemingly overcrowded market. PNS reports: "As one longtime Vietnamese reader in San Jose put it recently, "You read the Viet Merc and the San Jose Mercury News for information. You read community papers to know where the community stands on the issues and when to protest."" Jim Nguyen, a sales staff person at the old Viet Mercury along with other Vietnamese 'mystery investors' bought the paper, which suffered a financial loss after the dot-com bubble burst and after 9/11. The community is reportedly suspicious of the new owners of the Viet Mercury because to date, the team has not come forward to introduce themselves. All readers have to go on now are rumors that the money could be coming from investors in Vietnam.

New America Media releases Katrina Poll Results
In an effort to provide a counter view to the multiple shortsighted polls conducted after Hurricane Katrina, New America Media conducted a national poll last month that went beyond blame and presented the opinions of oft overlooked ethnic and immigrant communities. In an earlier interview, NAM director Sandy Close said, "We need an inclusive discourse about Katrina. We need to make sure we hear from, learn from, inquire from all communities." The poll was conducted in six languages and included four racial/ethnic groups. One major finding was that among four ethnic and racial groups in the U.S., eliminating poverty here was more important that fighting terrorism, establishing democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan and even rebuilding the cities and regions devastated by natural disasters. Read additional findings here.