A Project RIGHT, Inc. study
What is our public face?
A community ‘sweep’ of local TV news
A study of Greater Roxbury’s image on local television news conducted for Project Right, Inc.
October, 1998
Boston College Media Research Action Project
617-552-8708
STUDY FOCUS
Every spring, television stations conduct “sweeps” to measure their popularity with viewers. This spring, Project Right, Inc. commissioned a sweep of its own which asked,
“What is the public face of Greater Grove Hall presented to television viewers?”
In other words, if Boston-area residents rely on television news for their window to the world, what do they see of the Greater Grove Hall neighborhood, an area which reflects the general issues facing communities of color in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan?
Why Project RIGHT Takes Media Coverage Seriously
Project RIGHT, Inc. is dedicated to Restoring and Improving Grove Hall Together with its residents and local organizations. Project RIGHT is undertaking broad community development which can be dramatically impacted by the public image of a community created by mass media coverage. In this light, many of the 30+ organizations participating in Project RIGHT, Inc. along with other Grove Hall residents have raised concerns about Greater Roxbury’s image on local television news.
In response to these concerns, Project RIGHT, Inc. has initiated a dialogue with local media. To provide a solid statistical grounding for these discussions, Project Right also commissioned this sweep of local TV news, The question we posed is, “What is the public face of Greater Grove Hall?”
While Project Right, Inc. and Grove Hall, Roxbury, represent only a small portion of Boston’s Demographic Market Area (DMA), this dialogue presents an opportunity to explore concerns shared by many more residents - other Boston residents; other communities of color; and surburbanites troubled by the limitations of local television news.
STUDY SCOPE --
Grove Hall in the context of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan
Project Right, Inc. posed the question, “What images of our Greater Grove Hall neighborhood do local news broadcasters present to their viewers?”
To answer this question, Project Right, Inc. commissioned a four week content analysis of the four major networks’ local newscasts (NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox). For seventy hours of local newscasts, researchers tracked the following:
- the subject matter of each story
- its location in the broadcast
- references to Roxbury, Dorchester and/or Mattapan
The study sets Greater Grove Hall in the contest of the larger Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan area. [Stories are also listed by neighborhood. See Chart A]
The reasons for this broader sweep are threefold:
1) Although Project Right, Inc.’s focus is Greater Grove Hall, we realize that many newscasts and thus many viewers do not distinguish different neighborhoods in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. Grove Hall itself, for instance, includes both Roxbury and Dorchester addresses.
2) Media market surveys stress race and income demographics. By including Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, in this survey, we maximize chances of capturing how local TV newscasts are presenting local communities of color since Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, especially the Blue Hill Ave. corridor, represent the single largest concentration of African American, Latino and other Caribbean communities in the Boston Designated Market area of 5,700,000 viewers. (See attached statistics.
3) Greater Grove Hall reflects the population and the issues of the Boston DMA’s communities of color but numerically is a small subset of that larger set of communities. Given this, we anticipated that the amount of news coverage Grove Hall receives in any given four-week period might be to small to permit generalizations.
GENERAL FINDINGS
Four major findings are noteworthy.
1. The public image of Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan presented by local television news is one of a violent dangerous place. Seven of every ten stories concerning Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan focus on crime and accidents (69%). This contrasts with five of every ten local television news stories for the greater Boston and Mass area (52%).
2. The predominance of crime/accident news for the Greater-Boston/Mass area - five of every ten stories -- surpasses recent New York Times estimates (9/98) of national averages (25-30%). Boston’s focus on crime news belies a crime rate falling nationally and locally.
3. Lost in this crime focus is other local news of interest to the 3,000,000 residents of Greater Boston – coverage of politics, business, housing, education, etc. Less than 6% of local television coverage attends to Boston’s civic news. The number is comparable for Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan.
4. Alternative news approaches were possible. The top ten Globe headlines (front page and Metro section) provided more varied images of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. In contrast to the preponderance of crime/accident stories on television, only 2 of every ten Globe stories (17%) featured crimes and accidents. Other topics addressed were education, business, government, etc. The wider audiences reached by television news broadcasts might welcome access to the same information received by readers of print media.
STUDY BACKGROUND
Since 1987, several surveys of local news coverage of Boston’s communities of color have been published. Some focused on the Black community [Johnson 1987 and Clarke 1992] while others included Asian Pacific and Latino communities [MEP 1992 and Smith 1991] *
These ground-breaking studies, offer insights into the public face of Greater Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan. Many, however, are almost a decade old. More significantly, the studies were organized by ethnicity not by area. None addressed economic considerations. Thus, Project RIGHT, Inc. felt the need for a media study which acknowledged the ethnic and class diversity of the Grove Hall area of Roxbury.
Studies of Boston media coverage of communities of color
Kirk Johnson, “ Media Images of Boston’s Black Community.” 1987. Trotter Inst.
Erna Smith, “What Color is the News?” 1991. San Francisco State University
Media Education Project, “The Community Media Study.” 1992 Boston Foundation and Hyams Trust
Dorothy A. Clarke, “Race, Poverty, and the Role of Media.” 1992. Trotter Institute for Boston Foundation Persistent Poverty Project.
More recently, national studies** have documented trends in local television news, many of them analyzing the impact of crime coverage on urban communities, and especially on communities of color. This study draws from and corroborates many of the findings of these larger national initiatives.
National studies of local television news
** Joe Holley, “Should the Coverage Fit the Crime?” Columbia J. Rev. May/June ’96
** Mark C. Miller, “It’s a Crime: The Economic Impact of the Local TV News in Baltimore.”
** Michael Winerip, “Does Local TV News Have to Be So Bad?” NYT, 1/11/98
DESCRIPTION OF STUDY
This is a classic media monitoring study. For a four week period in April and May 1998, the Boston College Media Research Action Project watched, coded, then analyzed local TV news stories on four network stations, Channels 4, 5, 7 and 25. (Resources prohibited the inclusion of all stations). Adapting categories developed by Johnson 1987 and Smith 1992, we coded each story for topic, location in broadcast and locality. We noted every story covered which referred to the Grove Hall-Blue Hill Ave. corridor. Thus, we provide data for Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan.
In such a study, the question always arises, “But maybe there was no coverage because there was little news that met journalistic criteria of newsworthiness. To control for this eventuality, we used The Boston Globe. We contrasted the top ten stories in the The Boston Globe with the top ten stories on television news. Thus print media coverage provided a measure of availability of news. This is not, however, a study of print media.
Project RIGHT’s primary intent is to build dialogue with the Boston media by providing facts regarding the current state of local news coverage. To this end, we describe the public face of Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, as sketched by local news on the major network stations. Follow-ups will include spot monitoring of remaining stations in the Boston media market to verify overall trends.
DETAILED FINDINGS
Descriptive data
Finding # 1 –
Percentage of local television news focusing on crime and accidents in Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan.
Finding # 2 –
Contrast local television news coverage of Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan with the comparable coverage of greater Boston and Massachusetts.
Finding # 3 –
Percentage of local television news addressing civic issues - politics, economics, business, education, housing, etc.
Finding # 4 –
Measures of local print media focusing on crime and accidents in Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan.
Descriptive Data
Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan coverage
(by date, location, and topic)
Code: Ac = Accident; C = Crime; Ed = Education; B = Business; Y = youth;
Ms = Miscellaneous; P = Politics; H = Hsg; E = Environment
APRIL
4/16, Roxbury+Ed, Barbara Bush speaks at elementary school.
4/23, Dorchester+Ac, Accident due to weather
4/26, Roxbury+MS, Malcolm X house on Dale St. may be memorial
4/27, Roxbury+B, City Fresh Foods gets visit from Rubin and Kerry
4/29, Dor+B, black leaders making a difference receive community awards,
improving the inner city
4/29, Dor+C, illegal garment shops
4/30, Dor+C, Morales (Latino) shot, drug raid busted
MAY
5/2, Matt+C, little girl injured in hit and run
5/2, Dor+Y-Ac, child falls out window-“Mayor’s program” not in effect to prevent these injuries
5/2, update Matt+C, little girl in hit and run dies at hospital
5/3, Matt+C, little girl in hit and run, community rallies, need speed bumps
5/3, Rox+Ac, teen death, residents paying respects 5/4, Dor+C, Mattapan mom coping with toddler’s death-black suspect has no license, speed bumps needed
5/3, Matt+Ac, hit and run of 3 year old girl
5/3, Rox+C, DSS death investigated
5/4, Matt+C, young girl killed in car accident, black suspect’s trail(5/17), Rox+Ac, missing ten year old
5/9, Dor+Ms, money found in Dorchester, kids get $ (no race mentioned)
5/12, Rox+C, murder suspect arrested; over pizza-black male shown
(5/12, Rox+C, murder suspect arrested; over pizza-black male shown
(5/17), Rox+Ac, Roxbury boy missing
(5/19), Dor+Cr, shooting in front of Pilgrim Chruch (Upren’s corner), 1 dies
5/23), Dor+C, suspect drug dealer shot by under cover cop, found 30 bags of cocaine and 9 loaded guns (no race mentioned)
(5/25), Dor+Ms, memorial day-honoring heroes
JUNE
(6/17): Rox+Ms Memorial to police fallen in duty
Finding #1 :
Seven of every ten stories on Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan focuses on crime/accidents.
Nationally, studies of local television news find that news stories are increasingly shorter, focusing on dramatic visuals of crimes, accidents or disasters. Little context is provided. (Altheide, Kaniss, Iyengar)
- Coverage patterns of Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester are more extreme. Seven of every ten stories about Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan focus on crime or accidents. (69%)
- A viewer dependent on television news for information would easily form an exclusive impression of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan as dangerous areas.
AREA / Total # stories / # of crime/Acc stories / % Crime/Acc
Rox/Dorch/Matt / 29 stories / 20 stories / 69%
Summary: 20 of 29 stories about Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan focus on crime and accidents leaving a strong impression of a dangerous place.
Finding #2:
Television news presents an image of Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan as a dangerous place. 69% of all stories about Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan were crime or accident-centered. In contrast, 52% of stories about the rest of Boston and MA were crime or accident-centered.
Chart: Rox/Dorch/Matt crime/accident coverage contrasted
to rest of Boston/MA
AREA / Total # stories / # of crime/Acc stories / % Crime/AccRox/Dorch/Matt / 29 stories / 20 stories / 69%
Other Boston + Mass / 783 stories / 408 stories / 52%
If it bleeds it leads. Five of every ten stories about greater Boston, seven of every ten stories about Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan focus on accidents or crime.
One side-effect is a terminal lack of space for civic news.* Local television newscasts have limited air time: of the roughly 22 minutes of a local newscast only 5 to 7 minutes are devoted to local news, the rest being devoted to national news updates, weather, sports, etc. Given this limited time, local civic issues are automatically downplayed when crime and accidents are emphasized.
*In the category, “civic news,” we include stories covering politics, business, economics, education, housing and youth (except for crime/accident stories featuring youth).
Finding #3A
Less than one in ten local news stories for Boston/Mass covers civic issues.
While Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan are under-covered and poorly covered, this study demonstrated that local television news gives the entire Boston metropolitan region short shrift. Local civic news (politics, business, education, housing, youth) comprised, on average, only 6% of the top ten stories. [ Variation among stations: 4% - 8.6%].
Placement in newscast is also an issue: Crime and accident stories air before civic news.
At least half of the broadcasts provided no local civic news among the top ten stories. The station ranking highest for civic coverage barely averaged one local civic story in the top ten daily. The average civic news story appears no earlier than the sixth story in the broadcast.
Chart: Civic Index (Frequency with which local civic stories - politics, business, education, housing, youth - make the top ten news stories)
Station / % of top ten stories addressing local civic issues / Days/month that local civic stories make top ten / Days/week month that a local civic story makes the top ten / % of days in which there was no local civic news in top tenTotals / 6% / 13 of 28 days / 3.25 days/week
(less than ½ of week’s days) / 54%
Range of findings:
Low: 4.0% (less than one local civic story every other day)
High: 8.6% (almost one local civic story per day)
Finding #3B
One in every six stories about Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan covers civic issues.
A civic index measures how much news addresses the deeper concerns of Project Right and the communities it serves.
Average - all stations / % of Rox/Dor/Matt stories focused on crime or accidents / % of Rox/Dor/Matt news focused on civic issuesTOTALS / 69% (7 in 10 stories) / 16% (a little more than 1 in 6 stories)
(Civic stories re Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan occured on two stations only)
*In the category, “civic news,” we include stories covering politics, business, economics, education, housing and youth (except for crime/accident stories featuring youth).
Finding #4
Contrasting print trends
- A sample of the top ten stories in print media during the same time period provided contrasting images. (Front page and 1st page of Metro Section, Globe.)
- In contrast to the preponderance of crime and accident stories on television news (7 of every 10 stories about Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan), only 17% of Globe stories regarding Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan focused on crime and accidents, or roughly 2 of every 10 stories. Other issues featured included education, business, and government.
- For the rest of Boston and Mass, the percentage of crime/accident stories featured on Globe front page and Metro (1st page) was 3 of every 10 stories (30%).
Summary:
2 of every 10 Globe stories re Rox/Dorch/Matt focus on crime/accidents contrasted with 7 of every 10 television stories.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS --
KVUE (Austin) reworks crime coverage: Ratings hit decade peak
National studies cited previously suggest that current crime coverage reinforces surburbanites’ fear of urban areas and particularly, of communities of color. Failure to address the negative impact of crime coverage on community development will undermine the economic and social development of Greater Roxbury. Project Right, Inc., therefore, urges that crime coverage be reworked to serve a purpose beyond sensationalism for ratings’ sake.
How can reporters decide when crime coverage is necessary and critical? Below we provide the criteria developed by KVUE , Austin’s top-ranked television station. Editors and reporters decide which crimes deserve coverage by asking the following questions:
- Is there an immediate threat to safety?
- Does action need to be taken by viewers?
- Is there a threat to the safety of children?
- Does the crime have significant community impact?
Does the story lend itself to crime prevention efforts?
While the experiment has not been easy [see Holley, “Should the Coverage Fit the Crime?” Col. J. Rev. 5/96], the changes have been positively received by viewers and KVUE’s ratings have continued to rise.
Project RIGHT, Inc. would add one question that reminds reporters to ground crime coverage in context:
- Are there background circumstances (economics, social and historical developments) which illuminate the causes of the crime and thus, point to possible measures to prevent its recurrence or increase?
Using these questions, reporters can shape crime coverage, moving from sensationalized description of horrific incidents to coverage which explores causes and possible community responses. Crime is not ignored but set in context. And air time expands for other issues of local concern.
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Boston College Media Research Action Project, 617-552-8708