Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation

by Eric Deggans

Overview

Gone is the era of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, when news programs fought to gain the trust and respect of a wide spectrum of American viewers. Today, the fastest-growing news programs and media platforms are fighting hard for increasingly narrow segments of the public and playing on old prejudices and deep-rooted fears, coloring the conversation in the blogosphere and the cable news chatter to distract from the true issues at stake. Using the same tactics once used to mobilize political parties and committed voters, they send their fans coded messages and demonize opposing groups, in the process securing valuable audience share and website traffic. Race-baiter is a term born out of this tumultuous climate, coined by the conservative media to describe a person who uses racial tensions to arouse the passion and ire of a particular demographic. Even as the election of the first black president forces us all to reevaluate how we think about race, gender, culture, and class lines, some areas of modern media are working hard to push the same old buttons of conflict and division for new purposes. In Race-Baiter, veteran journalist and media critic Eric Deggans dissects the powerful ways modern media feeds fears, prejudices, and hate, while also tracing the history of the word and its consequences, intended or otherwise.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230341821
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/30/2012
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for National Public Radio and formerly for the Tampa Bay Times, Florida's largest newspaper. He also contributes to CNN.com and the Huffington Post. Deggans regularly appears as a pundit/expert on MSNBC's "Countdown"; CNN's "Reliable Sources"; Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" morning show and "Hannity and Colmes"; PBS's "The NewsHour"; CNN Headline News' "Showbiz Tonight"; "The Tavis Smiley Show" on Black Entertainment Television; and the PBS shows "Livelyhood" and "The Calling." His work has also appeared in a host of newspapers and magazines ranging from the conservative Newsmax magazine to the Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Detroit News and Miami Herald, VIBE magazine, Hispanic magazine and Ebony magazine.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction Making All the Right Enemies 1

1 Fox News Channel vs. MSNBC: Downgrading All Journalism in the Race to Win a Political Fight 17

2 Information Wars: How Partisan Media Manipulate Facts to Get Your Attention 41

3 Fox News Channel's Focus on Scary Black People Leaves Race Relations as Collateral Damage 65

4 Chasing Obama, Newt, Bachmann, and Palin: The Pitfalls of Race and Gender in Political Coverage 89

5 From Supernegroes to BBFs: Why Network TV Still Often Stars White America 109

6 How News Media Became a Haven for Middle-Aged White Guys (and a Few Women) 135

7 Hate Radio: Why Talk Radio May Not Be a Haven for Angry White Guys Much Longer 155

8 From Flavor Flav to All-American Muslim: Searching Past the Stereotypes in "Reality TV" 179

9 The Katrina Effect: How Lax Poverty Coverage Helps Politicians Demonize the Poor 203

10 Talking across Difference: Resisting Propaganda while Integrating Our Lives and Media 223

Notes 243

Index 267

Editorial Reviews

Deggans, the TV and media critic for the Tampa Bay Times, dissects how popular pundits and anchors concoct a web of hate and untruth to recruit viewers, saying " trust us, not them." Much of the emphasis is on the provocative nature of FOX News, under conservative media guru Roger Ailes and featuring the right-wing stars Bill O' Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity. Whether it's media coverage of President Obama, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Fluke, or the 2008 presidential election, the shadow issues of race and gender infect the national dialogue with code words and manipulated images, saying that "any journalism that opposes their core values is dishonest and inaccurate." In this thoughtful, controversial book, Deggans explores the racial strategies he sees used by conservative media for political advantage, and also cites the blow-by-blow battles between FOX and MSNBC. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Deggans makes a smartly presented call for more civil discourse.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Mr. Deggans writes about race with clarity and wit. He understands and explains the politics of the broadcast and cable networks and the logic of its programming decisions without letting them off the hook for falling short of their own goals.” —The Pittsburgh Post Gazette

“Troubling, detailed account of race and racism in today's media.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Eric Deggans is one of the most insightful and provocative writers about television today. In his columns for the St Petersburg Times and his NPR commentaries, Deggans has established himself as a voice worth listening to. His many fans — and I'm one of them — will devour this book.” —Andy Borowitz

“If you care about this country, if you want to take part in a citizen's movement that helps heal the deep racial, economic, and cultural divides tearing us apart, you must read Eric Deggans' Race-Baiter. No book of recent vintage so thoroughly dissects the media's monetized appetite for division. Provocative, honest, and smart, Race-Baiter is a supremely important book. Read it and let the conversation begin.” —Connie May Fowler, Author of Before Women had Wings

“Eric Deggans proves that he is one of the most insightful and courageous writers covering today's fast-shifting media landscape. This is an important book.” —Michele Norris, NPR's All Things Considered and founder of The Race Card Project

From the Publisher

Eric Deggans proves that he is one of the most insightful and courageous writers covering today's fast-shifting media landscape. This is an important book.

NPR's All Things Considered and founder of The Ra Michele Norris

Citing Trayvon Martin and Sandra Fluke, among others, Deggans (TV & media critic, Tampa Bay Times) explores how using certain words to talk about race, gender, and class colors how people perceive that information. He explains that when cable news pundits, talk-radio personalities, and political bloggers use race-baiting phrases, code words, and overt name calling, they perpetuate stereotypes and confirm prejudices. Suggesting that a young black person wearing a hoodie is probably a gang member and calling a law student a "slut" are examples of how the real concerns of neighborhood crime and women's health care are drowned out by derogatory images and words. While he theorizes that much of this problem stems from polarizing cable news and talk-radio programs, Deggans shows how other media such as newspapers and network television, as well as the lack of diversity in company hiring practices, also contribute to this divisive political and social discourse. He closes with prescriptions for finding a more productive way to communicate. VERDICT This insightful analysis is for aspiring journalists, media studies students, and news junkies.—Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cnty. Lib. Syst., FL

Library Journal

Tampa Bay Times TV and media critic Deggans' first book dissects "the powerful ways modern media often works to feed our fears, prejudices, and hate toward each other." Gone are the days when a TV network could garner a large, diverse audience that might engage in a shared dialogue on race by viewing, say, the 1977 TV series Roots. Instead, race, as well as bigotry, has become the purview of niche outlets, from cable TV and talk radio to the endless media sources of the Internet. Such niche outlets, by and large, are dominated by conservative commentators who, in search of anger and outrage that builds ratings, serve and reinforce the racial fears and hatreds of their select audience. This audience tends to be overwhelmingly white, male, older and wary of people of color. And so new and old stereotypes against racial minorities persist. Viewers and listeners, having their views confirmed, neither trust nor listen to opposing viewpoints, and true dialogue on race becomes an impossibility. Deggans traces the history of this rise of "prejudice as a business model," but he also puts it into the larger context of the failure of media in general to address issues of race. When people of color are portrayed at all on TV entertainment programs, and that is not often enough, they may tend to be placed within specific one-dimensional stereotypes such as "The Angry Black Woman." TV news, for its part, lacks true diversity--no cable news channel has a person of color as anchor during prime time. Deggans concludes that acting to refute racism whenever it appears in the media is both possible and necessary for understanding across races. Troubling, detailed account of race and racism in today's media.

Kirkus Reviews