Movements in the Media

Who determines the news or sets agendas? This is such a simply constructed question with such a complex answer.

As the PBS program suggested, the FCC traditionally has had a stranglehold on what is allowable to be shown and who is allowed to show it. By the FCC promoting big media firms, it’s controlling the news. Big media firms are effectively keeping minority voices unheard or misheard.


I think we all would have to agree that the lack of minority-run media channels is saddening, and often times distinguishes what stories get run. What’s truly disturbing is that even media that is supposed to be catered toward minorities is often times actually run by NON-minorities. When non-minorities are forced to report on minorities and/or FOR minorities, the message can often come times be skewed.

On the other hand, news stations bear some responsibility on what news IS news, which often times becomes part of their own agenda. For example, Fox News and MSNBC aren’t the most unbiased media channels, and they will continue to run stories that parallel their agenda.

We need media to represent different interests of people in color because without it, we’re not only being naïve, but minorities’ stories and issues would act as the elephant in the room. They’d be something there, but never addressed. By opening the media up to different perspectives and different types of stories than they are traditionally used to, they will create a better understanding. On the surface level, many interests do not seem to be the interests of the rest of society, but it’s the media’s job to point out how these issues affect everyone; a job that the media more often than not, fails to do adequately.


The war was initially reported to be a necessary, heroic maneuver our president launched us into to halt terrorism. This was one instance in American history where the media failed its people. If any organization critiqued the logic or motives behind the war, they were bombarded with allegations of being unpatriotic. The government manipulated the media, but the media was so complacent. Naïve. It’s the media’s role to be the watchdog, and they failed their public.

Often times the only reason I think the media covers social protests is because it offers good videos or pictures. Sometimes I don’t think the actual issues seem important. I heard more about the rallies regarding the Jena Six than the obvious underlying racial conflict still apparent in Jena, Louisiana.


The media played an imperative role in the Civil Rights Movement. It’s one thing to hear rumors about how African Americans were still being treated in the South, but to have those impetuous images plastered on the front pages of every newspaper and on the TV screen was a whole other ballgame. It acted as an emotional catalyst to right our country’s wrongs. The fact that human beings were treating other human beings in such an inhumane way was appalling.

The same thing happened during the Vietnam War. For months and months, Americans had heard just how horrible things were that were going on overseas, but it wasn’t until American media correspondents started sending pictures and videos back to the States when people’s attitude toward the war changed. Sometimes seeing is believing.


I truly believe that the media having its own agenda is a story as old as time. I’m not sure if it will ever be any other way. One thing I do know, though, is that it could get better. Just like minority representation from the media could get better.

Minority representation or under-representation is an aspect in the media world that really gets under my skin. People of color have added so much to this country, but you wouldn’t guess that with the amount of representation they get in newspapers and TV without it being negative in nature.