Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media [Hardcover]

Pamela Newkirk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0814757995 | ISBN-13: 978-0814757994

Winner of the National Press Club Prize for Media Criticism.

Companion website: http://www.nyupress.nyu.edu/authors/veil.html

Thirty years ago, the Kerner Commission Report made national headlines by exposing the consistently biased coverage afforded African Americans in the mainstream media. While the report acted as a much ballyhooed wake-up call, the problems it identified have stubbornly persisted, despite the infusion of black and other racial minority journalists into the newsroom.

In Within the Veil, Pamela Newkirk unmasks the ways in which race continues to influence reportage, both overtly and covertly. Newkirk charts a series of race-related conflicts at news organizations across the country, illustrating how African American journalists have influenced and been denied influence to the content, presentation, and very nature of news.

Through anecdotes culled from interviews with over 100 broadcast and print journalists, Newkirk exposes the trials and triumphs of African American journalists as they struggle in pursuit of more equitable coverage of racial minorities. She illuminates the agonizing dilemmas they face when writing stories critical of blacks, stories which force them to choose between journalistic integrity, their own advancement, and the almost certain enmity of the black community.

Within the Veil is a gripping front-line report on the continuing battle to integrate America's newsrooms and news coverage.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

On the surface, the increase of African American reporters in the media may signal that they have made significant gains in that arena. But as Professor Pamela Newkirk of New York University outlines in her valuable book Within the Veil, race is still an issue that blacks have to deal with. Riffing on W.E.B. Du Bois' use of "the veil" in his classic book The Souls of Black Folk, Newkirk writes: "Behind the obvious, albeit small, numerical gains, a wide and deep racial and cultural chasm still divides blacks and whites in the newsroom. Despite their heightened visibility, African-American journalists and their minority counterparts, woefully underrepresented in the industry and in news management, are far from integrated into newsroom culture." Charting the development of the black press with the publication of Freedman's Journal in 1827, Newkirk chronicles the endless struggle of blacks to challenge the racist stereotypes that permeate American thought. She details the ordeals of several blacks in the '60s who desegregated TV networks, the most well known example being the late Max Robinson, brother of civil rights leader Randall Robinson. There's also the case of the disgraced Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke, who had to give back her Pulitzer Prize for writing a false story, while white writers guilty of the same crime are given jobs elsewhere. Newkirk also highlights the pressures black reporters feel from their racial group to tell the truth about Afro-American life, which at times goes against what their white counterparts believe. Newkirk also examines Black Entertainment Television and Net Noir, an Internet company, and writes, "African-Americans must use the power of praise and punishment to call attention to the ways in which they are portrayed." --Eugene Holley Jr.

From Publishers Weekly

During her days as a newspaper journalist, New York University journalism professor Newkirk recalls, her editors "resisted perspectives that were foreign to the white cultural mainstream." This episodic book ventilates such concerns. Newkirk has some strong evidence: a Time correspondent couldn't convince his editors that Louis Farrakhan had a complex appeal in 1994, and Bryant Gumbel's attempt to cover Africa in 1992 had to include enough wildlife to satisfy white viewers. She steps back to trace "the uphill battle to diversify the mainstream media" following the 1968 Kerner report, which revealed damningly biased coverage of blacks. One chapter concerns a landmark lawsuit in which the New York Daily News was found in 1987 to have discriminated against four black journalists. She acknowledges the dilemmas black journalists face in reporting on problems in their communities, while noting that "reporting that too often freeze-frames pathology" gets praise (such as Janet Cooke's story of an eight-year-old heroin addict, which won a Pulitzer and was later proved to be fabricated). In a chapter on double standards, she suggests that Boston Globe columnists Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith, both of whom invented characters, were treated differently because of race. Her book could go deeper, though; she cites a 1997 survey on the difficulty minorities encountered in finding newspaper jobs, but doesn't delve into the effectiveness (and vigor) of prominent minority recruiting programs. She cites coverage of the Reginald Denny beating as an example of the media "harp[ing] on black crime"; but what does she make of the Rodney King footage? Still, Newkirk's general perspective on race is worth heeding: that while blacks shouldn't view themselves as victims, whites shouldn't deny that racial barriers remain. Photos.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 284 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814757995
• ISBN-13: 978-0814757994
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,476,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tough Read, January 7, 2002

By 

Joseph S. Elder (Hartford, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media (Hardcover)

This is a very thoughtful and provocative read. Depending upon where one sits, it may not be easy to stomach. It is sobering, nontheless. It created in me a cynicism about the media, and it's purpose and meaning as holders of a public trust.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, June 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media (Hardcover)

This is a must-read book about the ways race influences the news we read in the newspapers and see on television. Everyone who cares about race and the future of our country should read this book!