Color, Caste and the Public Sphere

Abstract

Broadcast network newsrooms are powerful gatekeepers, setting cultural standards and attitudes for America at large via the stories they tell and the images they project. In 1968, the federal Kerner Commission chastised American news media for ignoring race, and seeing through the “white man’s eyes” and speaking from “the white perspective.” Grounded in critical and cultural studies and organizational theory, this study analyzes the experiences of 23 post-Civil Rights generation black journalists working in broadcast newsrooms who continue to struggle against anti-black cultural norms and attitudes at great physical, psychological and financial cost.

KEYWORDS:

• African-Americans
• broadcast journalism
• critical theory
• cultural studies
• Kerner Commission
• television