Scott Brinton presented his findings on race, representation and media bias in Nassau County.
Assistant Professor of Journalism Scott Brinton presented his research findings on race, representation and media bias in Nassau County at an event hosted by Hofstra University’s Center for “Race,” Culture and Social Justice on Wednesday, April 16.
Brinton’s research has been ongoing for two years as part of his thesis for the University of Missouri School of Journalism where he studied interactive media. He said his study is essentially a story about representation focusing on how people of color are represented in the news of their own communities.
“I looked at the level to which people of color appeared in imagery, photographs, video and as sources within stories,” Brinton said. “What I found is that in many cases, people of color were not present in coverage in their own communities. There was a heavy skew toward whiteness or white people and a large overrepresentation of white people in both imagery and in sourcing.”
During his presentation, Brinton highlighted the example of Ugandan climate activist, Vanessa Nakate, being cropped out of a photo taken with her white peers. Nakate attended a youth climate science event and saw that she was completely cropped out of an image when news coverage was released.
Peter Munn, a sophomore journalism major, said he had seen the photo before and was shocked to learn that Nakate was cropped out of it. Munn said Brinton’s presentation will have an impact on his choices as a journalist.
“I feel like the conversation will help me think about people who don’t get recognized,” Munn said. “This topic will open up my mind and perspective during interviews or when writing a story. It’s important to keep an open mind and consider every background.”
Brinton said his research started as a separate study with Hofstra’s Vice Dean of Radio, Television, Film, Mario Murillo.
“It was an idea of his to look at whether or not the communities of color surrounding Hofstra University are, in fact, news deserts,” Brinton said. “He asked me to join the study, I think in large part because of my background in community journalism and my work as a community journalist going back 28 years here in Nassau County.”
“We not only interviewed community leaders within these communities, but we also interviewed the journalists,” Brinton said. “So far the media have been really willing participants in the study despite knowing that this would be critical of their coverage.”
Maximilian Raymond, a senior philosophy, rhetoric and public advocacy major, said it was interesting to see the misrepresentation of race in terms of news media outlets.
“This topic has been explored in the media classes I’ve taken and to see this issue in news coverage in the community surrounding Hofstra is very worrying,” Raymond said. “Hopefully there can be implementation such as more courses that can help with alleviating these issues.”
In his presentation, Brinton spoke about his plan to have journalists be better informed on this topic.
“My hope and goal is to do a series of trainings at various outlets to talk about these findings and how we can do better in terms of representing communities of color,” Brinton said. “For many newsrooms there’s a constant turnover, so you have to constantly be training journalists on this.”
Brinton also said one of the most important factors for proper representation is to have journalists of color in the newsroom.
“There has to be that perspective within newsrooms,” Brinton said. “People of color need to be represented as journalists because they absolutely bring a different perspective.”
Raymond said proper representation of people of color in the media is important because of potential consequences of misrepresentation.
“I think proper representation is very important because we have a lot of stereotypes and misrepresentations of people of color,” Raymond said. “A big part of that is when we’re misrepresented in news outlets, it leaves a perception that people are going to have on people of color.”
