Missing: News Coverage of Communities of Color

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"A survey released in July by the Radio-Television News Directors Association and Ball State University found that about 21 percent of journalists working in local TV were minorities, virtually unchanged from the year before. ... A study released in June by the John and James L. Knight Foundation found that 73 percent of the nation's 200 largest newspapers employ fewer minorities than they did at some year between 1990 and 2004," writes Eric Deggans. "Why does this matter? Because TV anchors and other journalists ... directly affect what gets on the air." Deggans points to what he calls "Endangered White Women Syndrome" - the glut of news coverage of missing white women, while people like Tamika Huston, a missing black South Carolina woman, are virtually "ignored by national media, despite a $30,000 reward and the efforts of an aunt who is a Miami-based public relations executive." (And another recent study found that "newsrooms with larger numbers of Asian American staffers did a better job of covering Asian American communities and issues.")