Newspapers

From the earliest colonial days of the United States, newspapers have been central in influencing the image of multicultural America. All media forms are transmitters of culture and spread information over space that can articulate identity and community identification, values, practices, and beliefs, both positive and negative. However, many ethnic groups have fought for adequate representation in the mainstream press, particularly in terms of race and civil rights, which has led to the formation of a number of ethnic newspapers that provide agency over ethnic groups’ media representation. Yet, with the rise of digital technologies, there have been questions about the [Page 1610]efficacy of the form and content of print newspapers, particularly the press, which has long been a communication source for marginalized populations and a formative practice in the development of multicultural America.

A young newsboy holds copies of the prominent African American newspaper the Chicago Defender in 1942. A survey by the American Society of News Editors found that the newsrooms of large metropolitan dailies remained 80 percent white in 2011.

As American culture became increasingly literate throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the role, coverage, and quantity of newspapers dramatically increased in the United States because of a number of factors, notably immigration, globalization, and an increasing demarginalization of ethnic minorities. Throughout this period, print newspapers articulated a number of seminal events in the development of multicultural America, including the maintenance and abolition of slavery; the civil rights movement; the growth of Latino, Asian American, Native American, and Middle Eastern populations; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) struggles for equality. Many of these cultural groups established their own newspapers during this era, written and published by and for their respective interests to inform and deliberate over specific issues relating to their cultural identities, beliefs, and practices.

However, there have been significant struggles for recognition of the interests of marginalized populations in mainstream newspapers. In the 20th century, many questions arose over the nature of the form and content for those who owned and produced the news in representing multicultural ideals, particularly the way in which marginalized cultures have been represented in newspaper content as well as in the newsroom itself. The question of newsroom diversity—race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and culture—has long been a critique of many media, but of newspapers in particular. Reporters, editors, publishers, and other journalistic staff have historically been white, American, heterosexual, English-speaking, and, until relatively recently, male, leading to questions over the handling of issues relating to diverse audiences. Many have argued that the prevalence of these identity traits in newsrooms has reproduced hegemonic norms and power structures through the reinforcement of dominant ideologies, as well as the absence of coverage relating to other identity traits. The articulation of American multiculturalism has long been influenced by those who decide what is news.

The issue of racial civil rights in particular was marked by a notable absence of newspaper coverage of the struggle for equality by African Americans. During the 1950s and 1960s, many American newspapers regularly ignored the struggle of the civil rights movement in their coverage of news and opinion, particularly in southern states. Stories on racial violence and oppression, sit-ins, and demonstrations were routinely either not covered or presented as one-sided narratives of civil unrest and criminal activity. Several newspapers, southern and otherwise, have since issued apologies or corrections for the one-sided coverage during this period, most notably the 2004 front-page correction of Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader for its coverage of the civil rights movement.

...