Abstract

Bad Show for Reporters

Always the cameras and microphones and pencils poised over Ocean Hill-Brownsville to record that the school decentralization struggle remained blind and deaf and still, until a dashiki appeared. The implements sprang to life for the Afro-clad militants, but never noticed the fire in the eyes of the man with the clerical collar, until it was too late. The coverage at Ocean Hill thus became infused with racism. It was not a one-way street. Many things crept into the coverage. Television reporters whose children were inactivated by the teachers strike would ask coercive questions. The job of the journalist is to make allowance for the response, to be disciplined enough to step back from it and not use inaccurate verbs. The job at Ocean Hill was almost impossible from every standpoint.