I spent spring break in Springfield, MO, visiting my boyfriend who attends Drury University. Springfield is Missouri’s third largest city; with over 400,000 people and five universities there is NOT a lot to do there. Drury is in the heart of what my boyfriend coined, the ‘slum’ of Springfield. During the day there were homeless people sleeping on benches and children playing games in the school’s computer lab. Thus, I feel I must also preface by stating that Springfield’s population consists of an overwhelming white majority. Wikipedia states it to be 91.69%, to be exact.
While watching the local news in Springfield, I did not see a single reporter, news anchor or journalist of color. Not a single one. While there seemed almost an equal ratio of female to male, I couldn’t get past my shock of seeing the continuous array of white faces reporting the news to me.
Despite the large proportion of whites in Springfield, a majority of the crime covered the ‘ethnics’ on the streets. The most shocking news story I viewed was regarding gang text messages. Apparently, mass texts were received in the area warning of a potential Wal-mart shoot up. (Interestingly, I received one of those texts, myself, from a friend that lives in OKC.) The anchor provided voice-over of video showing young men walking around, high-fiving each other and smiling. The men were black and Hispanic and wore, what I suppose Springfield would consider, ‘gangster’ clothing. Surprisingly, none of the men were interviewed or were identified; yet the news story led the audience to believe the men seen were the offenders.
There were several robberies in Springfield throughout my visit, but my boyfriend assured me that they were all commonplace. The news station, in my opinion, did not represent diverse interests, nor did it portray the population accurately.
Overall, the news in Springfield discussed black robberies, black murder of a white woman, Hispanic drug violations and shoplifting, a black female’s mail fraud and one white crime. Very interesting.
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Interesting, Why?
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