Question

Explain Ziegler and White’s (1990) findings on racism in use of sources on network news

Answer 1

According to Ziegler and White’s (1990) findings on racism in the use of sources on network news

Whites have dominated television news coverage, that comprises more than three-quarters of the 1530 sources coded. Nearly 90% of network news reporters were found to be White. Elite sources like the experts, company spokespeople, and government officials were generally White, whereas minority sources were often private individuals or ordinary citizens. In addition, White sources were reported to clearly dominate all story topics, with a majority presence in every case, except for foreign affairs stories in which the bulk of sound bites were made up of the foreign sources. In stories about science/technology, foreign affairs, and electoral politics minority sources were scattered more sparingly across story topics, barely making a showing in some, such as Black and Hispanic sources appeared most often in stories about accidents/disasters/weather events, in both pre-Hurricane Katrina and post-Hurricane Katrina samples. Results show that minority reporters were more likely to use minority sources in their stories than White reporters were.