This Book is Bad.

To my faithful followers:  I did not include pictures in this post because I'm lazy.  I apologize.

This has been one of my least favorite texts we've read in both this semester or last.  This section, especially, demonstrated some serious problems with Larson's writing and framing, despite the fact that she seems to have gotten over putting colloquial phrases in quotes every other sentence (don't worry, she still does it on 85 - by putting "bad demographics" in quotes, she lets her audience know that she doesn't really think that minorities are bad demographics.  If the quotes were not present, we might be too dumb to miss this subtlety.)

Let's begin with organization.  Larson opens with telling us that the upcoming section excludes figures "engaged in explicitly political activities (such as campaigns, social movements, or governing)" (81).  She gives no justification for this, and it begs the question why this division makes more logical sense than excluding criminals, or athletes, or any other group that would be featured frequently in the news.  I understand that the book goes on to cover more specifically politicians and social movements, but it still makes no sense to me to exclude them from this broad chapter.

Continuing with organization.  Why is Native American given their own section, when their population in the United States is roughly equivalent to both Arab-American populations and Indian-American populations?  Why is the Native American section listed before Hispanic Americans, when the latter population is about 16x the size?  Within the Native American section, why on Earth is the phrase "Indian" used over and over and OVER seriously?  How on EARTH can I take Larson seriously when she tells me that the media using the term powwow is racist when she herself is still using an outdated term that's disrespectful to both Indian-Americans and Native Americans?  How is using powwow for a meeting racist anyway?  Am I not allowed to refer to a nap as a siesta?  Borrowing NEUTRAL words and using them APPROPRIATELY is about as far from racist as I can imagine.

On studies--Most of Larson's descriptions of the studies she uses leave something to be desired.  In one by Campbell on 82, it's told he watches 40 hours of news programming, but it doesn't say region for the coverage or any supporting details that would help convince.  Not that I'm a skeptic on there being an overwhelming amount of racism in journalistic coverage, but there's no point in including a source without including the needed details.  A better use of a study is on pages 89-90, where more details were given and the implications were expounded upon.

On 83, she says minorities in soft news are only there for their novelty and color, despite the fact that a page before she had included sports in soft news ... not following that logic.

On 87, she claims politicians use news to determine public opinion.  Going to need a citation on that.  I could follow the logic she uses later when she says news pushes voters' opinions which in turn sways politicians, but NOT that politicians themselves are swayed.

During the parallel sources sections, she primarily goes over print papers based in the US.  I'll forgive the omission of digital sources since the research for this book probably began in 2003ish (although they were definitely present then), but the omission of the fact that a large number of immigrant populations continue to subscribe to news sources from their native countries feels silly.

During the specific minority sections, I felt a much needed addition was emphasis on how little attention minorities receive when they are the VICTIMS of a crime.  Check out the coverage of This American Life's Harper High School stuff vs. the Sandy Creek crap, or that white girl in Aruba, or anything else - crimes only matter when they affect white people is the message we get over and over again.

Finally, the argument on 127 that some minority targeting papers are not REALLY PARALLEL JOURNALISM because they don't cover hard-hitting topics is crap - all journalism aims to make a profit.  Larson fails to show evidence of a different motive.