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| Where's the blacks on local news?. December, 2007 |
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| Count the black faces. How many do you see? |
Originally noted back in April, 2007 things have gotten worst.
This reprinted article from Volume 1, Number 2 of An African-American Perspective Newsletter has been updated:
Let's talk about local TV news. In Williamsport, there are only three daily news stations that serve our community. All of them are located in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. Williamsport does not have a TV station of its own. Our community must depend on news broadcasts that are primarily produced and written for the Wilkes-Barre and Scranton markets.
WNEP, the ratings leader is owned by the New York Times Company. WBRE and WYOU are both owned by Nextar, a Texas company.
I did a little researching on the Internet and I found that each station has its own website that lists the bios of their on-air talent. WBRE and WYOU have a combined list of 28 on-air personalities. WBRE has one black female and one hispanic female listed. WBRE is a NBC news affiliate and WYOU is a CBS affiliate. (Both network news organizations air the Don Imus radio/TV show.)
WNEP (an ABC affiliate) is different. Of the 32 on-air personalities, three are non-white (Jill Garrett, Sherman Burdette and Rosa Yum).
To sum up, of the 60 people that report the news to us, only four reporters are "individuals of color". Three work for WNEP and one for WBRE. (Hispanics can be considered white.)
Please keep in mind there are many other people that contribute to a news show. The exact racial percentages of these employees are not available to me. But each year during the Christmas holidays the news stations show us the "off-air" people that work so hard to bring us the news. These electronic Christmas cards reveal that the behind-the-scene staffs are all white! I am sure the stations will do it again this year. So, this Christmas, count the number of dark skinned faces employed by the news stations. In years past, I didn’t see any.
Can young black high school students realistically expect to get a TV job in the Williamsport area? Are blacks locked out of high paying jobs in North Central Pennsylvania?
(As of November 29, 2007 things have gotten worst. According to the stations’ websites, Jill Garrett and Sherman Burdette are the only two black “on-air” faces on local TV news.)
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