Source: Barr, L. (1993).The next step: Showing a common history of treatment for minorities, women, and gays in media content, newsrooms and journalism schools; A proposal for further research and suggestions for a curriculum. Paper presented at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Kansas City, MO, August 11-14, 1993.
Curriculum Suggestions Toward a More Diverse Media Message:
Surprisingly, journalism educators have some positive media examples they can use as examples of multiculturally diverse media practices, such as the Seattle Times staffers who decided to diversify their paperās coverage÷to do a better job of covering minorities. Staffers write in Quill (July-August, 1991, pp.24-25) that they stepped out of their "comfort zones" and cultivated sources "in places we normally wouldnāt look." Their reasons for doing so were two-fold; to end the excuse that itās hard to find minority resources, and to give a different perspective than would the "usual sources."
Such an approach is precisely what the director of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies suggests for papers wanting to increase and improve minority coverage. Dr. Roy Peter Clark (Brown & Clark, 1991, p.25) also recommended teaching people in the community how to reach the press with the story idea and to experiment with different locations and formats for communicating with the public.
Another helpful suggestions comes from David Lawrence of the Miami Herald (1990, pp.16-23). His ten tips for pluralism could also be incorporated into a survey of journalists, editors, and media management.
Those who are structuring diversity curriculum need to remember the goals of such training and why it is needed. Communication professor Patricia Aufderheide (1991, pp. 31-41) says such courses must take into account the "entrenched perspectives of students whose convictions are shaped by both mass media and their daily experience of working disagreements. Similarly, Sharon Bramlett-Solomon argues that journalism students must be reminded of the domestic crisis the nation faced in the 1950s and 60s when the majority of the American media ignored its social responsibility to blacks and other oppressed groups.
A multicultural approach is the foundation of such courses, usually electives, with titles like "Mass Media and Peoples of Color". The courses allow teachers to explore thoroughly the history of minority groups in the U.S., and the way the media have portrayed these groups and their concerns. In this way, journalism students can be prepared to provide more sensitive and accurate coverage.
However, such courses may not be practical for every student. To address this situation, and to reach a larger number of students, with the vital information, some programs have started infusing small modules of multicultural information into the whole range of courses in the journalism program (Martindale, 1991b, p. 34). For instance, news writing and feature writing courses can incorporate outstanding stories written by minority journalists.
Teachers of journalism history are also advised to include audiovisual materials, books, and guest speakers who can provide information on the history of various minority groups, as well as the history of minority media, and how mainstream white media have covered minorities, and differently lived perspectives (not merely a textbook or teacher-delivered interpretation). Aufderheide also recommended providing discussion space to "engage that material constructively, to raise students anxieties, confusions, and resentments, and discover how misunderstandings go both ways."
Whether the material is structured in a course of its own or in modules, film and video can be powerful teachers, particularly when preceded by a brief informational lecture and followed by small group discussion.
Presentation, is of course, a matter of personal style. The substance of the message will perhaps dictate how it is conveyed to the student. But what is there to convey? The answer is·PLENTY!
Important Issues for Expanding Understanding of Gays and Lesbians
Given the fact that so much of gay history has been hidden, I recommend viewing the film "Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community", a film which lives up to its coverās description. Starting in the 1920s, it provides a decade-by-decade history of the public and private experiences of American homosexuals, focusing on the events which led to the 1969 riots at a New York City gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. Meshing eye-popping footage with amazing interviews with those who lived through an often brutal "closeted" history was a very effective technique to breach many historically-ignored topics, such as:
- The historical birthday of the gay liberation movement and the reasons behind the Stonewall riot.
- Origins of the word gay, which ironically, covered people who, because of societyās bias and hypocrisy, were forced to meet in the "twilight world" (as it was known in the early twentieth century). The word gay was used to describe everyone from prostitutes to ladies and gentlemen of doubtful virtue.
- Gays not hiding their attraction to the their own gender could face imprisonment or incarceration in mental institutions.
- During the 1920s, a time of economic prosperity and speakeasies, small groups of homosexuals began to emerge in areas such as San Franciscoās Barbary Coast, New Orleansā French Quarter, and New Yorkās Harlem and Greenwich Village, where freer social norms allowed the beginning of a homosexual underground.
- The many influential thinkers and authors who emerged from the bohemian subculture, tolerant of homosexuals cast out of genteel American society, such as Geoffrey Moss, Compton Mackenzie, Margaret Anderson, Langston Hughes, and Gertrude Stein÷not to mention the many books with lesbian themes (more than 500) and gay male themes (about 2,500) published between 1875 and 1940.
- The Great Depressionās stifling effects on the early gay and lesbian movement.
- How a list of homosexuals in Germany which was supposed to give gays and lesbians more freedom was later used by Hitler to brand, and later murder gays en masse.
- How the World War II effort "liberated" gays living in small towns across the nation, whose desire to serve their country brought them into contact with other patriotic gays in urban areas.
- Origins of the ban on homosexuals in the military was delayed by then Commanding General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The film features an interview with the WAC officer who said sheād obey his order to "ferret those lesbians out" of the warās most highly decorated battalion of 900 women.
- The end of World War II meant a return to the oppression gays and lesbians had faced before their country tolerated them because of their needed contribution to the war effort.
- In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a number of books, such as Gore Vidalās City in a Pillar, James Barrās The Occasional Man, and Donald Coryās The Homosexual in America rekindled the old bohemian "wide open mind" tradition.
- The importance of the Kinsey Reportās evidence that there were roughly 20 million gay men and women in America. This report helped gays and lesbians realize that they were not a tiny minority, but rather a sizable proportion of the general population.
- The Mccarthy Commissionās effects on American society, getting people to accuse fellow citizens of any possible sexual, social, or political "deviance".
- Leading newspapers printed the names of government employees accused of homosexuality and routed out of their government jobs after then-President Eisenhower published an order barring avowed homosexuals (who were many times coerced into confession) from serving. Many suicides were attributed to the publications of these names.
- Organizers of the first gay society in the U.S. (The Mattachine Society) cowered in an apartment with doors locked, blinds drawn, and a lookout posted in Los Angeles in 1950, because they fully expected police to break down their doors at any moment, simply for meeting to discuss their plans.
- The Society began the nationās first homosexual magazine, "The Mattachine Review" and "One", which provided the population of well-adjusted homosexual men for Dr. Evelyn Hookerās ground-breaking study which helped convince the American Psychiatric Association to stop branding homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Other Videos
Among the film or video productions I feel may prove very enlightening for broadcast news classes, in particular, is "The Times of Harvey Milk". Other films recommended by gay activists include "Color Adjustment", a documentary by the filmmaker of "Tongues United", a film about gay black men and televisionās racial myths and stereotypes.
There are many other hidden nuggets of history and current affairs which those hoping to provide some diversity about gays should provide to journalism students. Other issues pertaining directly to journalistic ethics include:
- "Outing"÷revealing the sexual orientation of someone who prefers to keep their orientation a private matter. On a related note:
- The experiences of Bill Sipple, the Secret Service Agent "outed" by a journalist who felt it was for Sippleās own good after Sipple saved President Gerald Ford from a gun-wielding woman. Sipple died thinking that his life was ruined by the publication of that information. The journalist now regrets his actions.
- The GLAAD and ADL dispute over ADLās "A World of Difference" anti-prejudice campaign.
- The objection gay activists have against the term "lifestyle". They prefer "orientation" because it doesnāt imply choice.
- The issues which prompted gay and lesbian journalists across the country to form chapters of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.
Books
The author also suggests reading:
Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in Media, by Martin Lee and Norman Solomon.
Hidden History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey Jr.
Gays in Uniform: The Pentagonās Secret Reports, edited by Kate Dyer.
Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, by Eric Marcus.
The Gay Decades, by Leigh W. Rutledge.
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military, by Randy Shilts (this one will knock your socks off!)
Suggestions for Future Research
Like the movements for blacks and women, the gay rights movement has faced backlashes which author Susan Faludi has described (in terms of the womenās movement) as formulaic and predictable. Hence, even as journalism instructors strive to include gays in diversity courses and modules, more research must firm up the theoretical underpinnings which show the need for such course content. The areas suggested for further study are: news media content concerning gays, the treatment of gays in our nationās newsrooms and journalism schools; the newsroom atmosphere in general.
The remainder of this article is in the WIU Library.
Use Your "Back" Button to Return to Your Origin