In the novel, we follow Tracy Beaumont as she pursues justice for her father and the truth about her brother's alleged involvement with the death of a White character named Angela. In her investigations, Tracy draws on skills she honed by preparing for the role of editor in her school's paper.
According to the The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University, "Journalism is the practice of gathering, recording, verifying, and reporting on information of public importance. Though these general duties have been historically consistent, the particulars of the journalistic process have evolved as the ways information is collected, disseminated, and consumed have changed. [...]
An image of the cover of the first issue of newspaper Freedom's Journal from the March 16, 1827 issue, courtesy of the Atlanta Voice
The most important difference between journalism and other forms of non-fiction writing is the idea of objectivity. Journalists are expected to keep an objective mindset at all times as they interview sources, research events, and write and report their stories. [...] "
According to a summary by Walter Dean of Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel's book The Elements of Journalism, "Good decision-making depends on people having reliable, accurate facts put in a meaningful context. Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute or philosophical sense, but in a capacity that is more down to earth."
Read more from this article at the American Press Institute:
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." (emphasis added)
Heading of the Bill of Rights from the Library of Congress
Check out the digital collections of the Library of Congress at the link below. They contain a wide variety of primary source materials associated with the Bill of Rights, including congressional publications, manuscripts, letters, and broadsides.
Freedom of the Press is a right to report news free of government control or censorship. According to the ACLU, "The freedom of the press...is critical to a democracy in which the government is accountable to the people. A free media functions as a watchdog that can investigate and report on government wrongdoing. It is also a vibrant marketplace of ideas, a vehicle for ordinary citizens to express themselves and gain exposure to a wide range of information and opinions."
According to the Oxford Bibliographies entry, The Black Press in the United States, "The black press is a critical—but often ignored—aspect of African American history and culture. Along with churches, political and service organizations, cultural institutions, and schools and universities, the black press has been central to community formation, protest and advocacy, education and literacy, and economic self-sufficiency. [...] African American journalism has played a dual role, serving as of purveyors of news and information and as agents of social change. The black press has always been a source of black American political power, and even among the most commercial ventures, it is a defender of shared values and interests. The story of these institutions is one of ever-present challenges—to secure financial resources and to fend off public and private efforts to silence or control them. Many of the most influential figures in African American history and 
thought including scholars, activists, entrepreneurs, religious leaders, novelists, and poets circulated through the black press as editors, publishers, artists, and correspondents" (emphasis added)
As noted on the 1. Fight for a True Democracy page of this guide, Ida B. Wells helped to bring about awareness to the horrors of lynching through her journalism. Listen to the interview below with Nikole Hannah-Jones (who goes by Ida Bae Wells on Twitter), about "objectivity" in the news then and now.
Image of this Pamphlet Cover in the Public Domain
"Beatrice Morrow Cannady was one of Oregon’s most 
dynamic civil rights activists. Between 1912 and 1936, she gave hundreds of lectures to high school and college students about the importance of better race relations. She used the new medium of radio to share her message of interracial goodwill with listeners in the Pacific Northwest. She was assistant editor, and later publisher, of The Advocate, a weekly Black newspaper founded by her first husband, Edward, in 1903. Cannady was the first Black woman to graduate from law school in Oregon, and the first to run for state representative."
Read more about her at "Beatrice Morrow Cannady and the Struggle for Civl Rights in Oregon, 1912-1936" from BlackPast.org.
Beatrice Morrow Cannady, Public domain image, Courtesy Barbara J. Redwine
Read about the history of the Black Press in the United States from the Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media:
The question of how negative portrayals and stereotypes of Black people in the media has been the subject of a lot of research. A search on this topic in LibrarySearch from 2000-2020 produces over 88,000 peer-reviewed articles. Studies have shown links between negative portrayals in news and other media with negative health outcomes, negative social interactions, over-sexualization especially of Black girls and women, and over-criminalization of Black adults and youth. The negative stereotypes are used to portray other groups as well. To explore this topic yourself, check out these books and links below:
In Remembrance of Emmett Till: Regional Stories and Media Responses to the Black Freedom Struggle by
On August 28, 1955, fourteen-year-old Chicago native Emmett Till was brutally beaten to death for allegedly flirting with a white woman at a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam were acquitted of murdering Till and dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River, and later that year, an all-white grand jury chose not to indict the men on kidnapping charges. A few months later, Bryant and Milam admitted to the crime in an interview with the national media. They were never convicted. Although Till's body was mutilated, his mother ordered that his casket remain open during the funeral service so that the country could observe the results of racially motivated violence in the Deep South. Media attention focused on the lynching fanned the flames of regional tension and impelled many individuals - including Rosa Parks - to become vocal activists for racial equality. In this innovative study, Darryl Mace explores media coverage of Till's murder and provides a close analysis of the regional and racial perspectives that emerged. He investigates the portrayal of the trial in popular and black newspapers in Mississippi and the South, documents posttrial reactions, and examines Till's memorialization in the press to highlight the media's role in shaping regional and national opinions. Provocative and compelling, In Remembrance of Emmett Till provides a valuable new perspective on one of the sparks that ignited the civil rights movement.
Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation about African Americans by
Drawing from government sources, published studies, and polls on a wide range of economic and social issues, this book provides African Americans who find themselves confronting ignorant or stereotyped comments or images with the ammunition they need to fight the pervasive misinformation surrounding racial issues in this country.
Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media by
This expanded collection of new and fully revised explorations of media content identifies the ways we all have been negatively stereotyped and demonstrates how careful analysis of media portrayals can create more beneficial alternatives. Not all damaging stereotypes are obvious. In fact, the pictorial stereotypes in the media that we don't notice could be the most harmful because we aren't even aware of the negative, false ideas they perpetrate. This book presents a series of original research essays on media images of groups including African Americans, Latinos, women, the elderly, the physically disabled, gays and lesbians, and Jewish Americans, just to mention a few. Specific examples of these images are derived from a variety of sources, such as advertising, fine art, film, television shows, cartoons, the Internet, and other media, providing a wealth of material for students and professionals in almost any field. Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, Third Edition not only accurately describes and analyzes the media's harmful depictions of cultural groups, but also offers creative ideas on alternative representations of these individuals. These discussions illuminate how each of us is responsible for contributing to a sea of meaning within our mass culture. 33 distinguished authors as well as new voices in the field combine their extensive and varied expertise to explain the social effects of media stereotyping. Includes historical and contemporary illustrations that range from editorial cartoons to the sinking of the Titanic Richly illustrated with historical and up-to-date photographic illustrations Every chapter's content is meticulously supported with numerous sources cited A glossary defines key words mentioned in the chapters
Representations of Black Women in the Media by
In 1920 W.E.B. Du Bois cited the damnation of women as linked to the devaluation of motherhood. This dilemma, he argues, had a crushing blow on Black women as they were forced into slavery. Black womanhood, portrayed as hypersexual by nature, became an enduring stereotype which did not coincide with the dignity of mother and wife. This portrayal continues to reinforce negative stereotypes of Black women in the media today. This book highlights how Black women have been negatively portrayed in the media, focusing on the export nature of media and its ability to convey notions of Blackness to the public. It argues that media such as rap music videos, television dramas, reality television shows, and newscasts create and affect expectations of Black women. Exploring the role that racism, misogyny and media play in the representation of Black womanhood, it provides a foundation for challenging contemporary media's portrayal of Black women.
Explore the Research YourselfUse this permalink to log into Academic Search Premier, an EBSCO database.
At the end of the novel, Tracy Beaumont writes once more to Innocence X to request an interview for her new podcast on justice. Like many young Black and African-American youth, Tracy is using the tools of social media to share her voice and make change in her world. Tracy took action.
Video recordings shared on social media or otherwise have played an important role in raising public awareness about the inequalities that Black, Indigenous, and non-Black People of Color (BIPoC) face in police encounters. From Rodney King's brutal beating in 1991, caught on video camera, to more-recent incidents like the killings of Eric Garner, Philando Castile, and Walter Scott, video recordings (both from social media and body-worn or police dashboard cameras) have also been used in court cases as evidence. Despite video recordings of police killings of unarmed Black men, this type of evidence often does not lead to a conviction (Source: "Former Officer's Guilty Verdict for Killing Walter Scott Is the Exception, Not the Rule").
According to a CNN article from May 31, 2020, the ACLU launched its Mobile JusticeTM app in 2015 "following the deaths of unarmed black teenagers Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, which ignited the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014."The app allows videos to be "automatically uploaded to the organization's server to ensure they are saved even if a phone is seized or destroyed." It has also become a deescalation tool: "It can help people feel empowered while forcing officers to take a second to reevaluate the situation."
"There is no doubt that moments like these highlight the importance of the app," Marcus Benigno, a spokesperson for the ACLU of Southern California, told CNN. "Without a video of the unfortunate and tragic incident, we probably wouldn't even know George Floyd's name."
A History of the Black Press by
"In this work, Dr. Wilson chronicles the development of black newspapers in New York City and draws parallels to the development of presses in Washington, D.C., and in 46 of the 50 United States. He describes the involvement of the press with civil rights and the interaction of black and nonblack columnists who contributed to black- and white-owned newspapers."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The African American Newspaper: Voices of Freedom by
Winner, 2007 Tankard Award In March of 1827 the nation's first black newspaper appeared in New York City--to counter attacks on blacks by the city's other papers. From this signal event, The African American Newspaper traces the evolution of the black newspaper--and its ultimate decline--for more than 160 years until the end of the twentieth century. The book chronicles the growth of the black press into a powerful and effective national voice for African Americans during the period from 1910 to 1950--a period that proved critical to the formation and gathering strength of the civil rights movement that emerged so forcefully in the following decades. In particular, author Patrick S. Washburn explores how the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender led the way as the two most influential black newspapers in U.S. history, effectively setting the stage for the civil rights movement's successes. Washburn also examines the numerous reasons for the enormous decline of black newspapers in influence and circulation in the decades immediately following World War II. His book documents as never before how the press's singular accomplishments provide a unique record of all areas of black history and a significant and shaping affect on the black experience in America.
A Force for Change: Beatrice Morrow Cannady and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Oregon, 1912-1936 by
A Force for Change is the first full-length study of the life and work of one of Oregon's most dynamic civil rights activists, Beatrice Morrow Cannady. Between 1912 and 1936, Cannady tirelessly promoted interracial goodwill and fought segregation and discrimination. She gave hundreds of lectures to high school and college students and shared her message with radio listeners across the Pacific Northwest. She was assistant editor, and later publisher, of The Advocate, Oregon's largest African American newspaper. Cannady was the first black woman to graduate from law school in Oregon, and the first to run for state representative. She held interracial teas in her home in Northeast Portland and protested repeated showings of the racist film The Birth of a Nation. And when the Ku Klux Klan swept into Oregon, she urged the governor to act quickly to protect black Oregonians' right to live and work without fear. Despite these accomplishments, Beatrice Cannady fell into obscurity when she left Oregon in the late 1930s. A Force for Change illuminates Cannady's key role in advocating for better race relations in Oregon in the early decades of the twentieth century. It describes her encounters with the period's leading black artists, editors, politicians, and intellectuals, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Oscar De Priest, Roland Hayes, and James Weldon Johnson. It dispels the myth that African Americans played little part in Oregon's history and it enriches our understanding of the black experience in Oregon and the civil rights movement across the country. Book jacket.
Ida B. Wells: Social Reformer and Activist by
Born into slavery in 1862, Ida B. Wells went on to become an influential reformer and leader in the African American community. A Southern black woman living in a time when little social power was available to people of her race or gender, Ida B. Wells made an extraordinary impact on American society through her journalism and activism. Best-known for her anti-lynching crusade, which publicly exposed the extralegal killings of African Americans, Wells was also an outspoken advocate for social justice in issues including women's suffrage, education, housing, the legal system, and poor relief. In this concise biography, Kristina DuRocher introduces students to Wells's life and the historical issues of race, gender, and social reform in the late 19th- and early 20th-century U.S. Supplemented by primary documents including letters, speeches, and newspaper articles by and about Wells, and supported by a robust companion website, this book enables students to understand this fascinating figure and a contested period in American history.
The View from Somewhere by
#MeToo. #BlackLivesMatter. #NeverAgain. #WontBeErased. Though both the right- and left-wing media claim "objectivity" in their reporting of these and other contentious issues, the American public has become increasingly cynical about truth, fact, and reality. In The View from Somewhere, Lewis Raven Wallace dives deep into the history of "objectivity" in journalism and how its been used to gatekeep and silence marginalized writers as far back as Ida B. Wells. At its core, this is a book about fierce journalists who have pursued truth and transparency and sometimes been punished for it--not just by tyrannical governments but by journalistic institutions themselves. He highlights the stories of journalists who question "objectivity" with sensitivity and passion: Desmond Cole of the Toronto Star; New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse; Pulitzer Prize-winner Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah; Peabody-winning podcaster John Biewen; Guardian correspondent Gary Younge; former Buzzfeed reporter Meredith Talusan; and many others. Wallace also shares his own experiences as a midwestern transgender journalist and activist who was fired from his job as a national reporter for public radio for speaking out against "objectivity" in coverage of Trump and white supremacy. With insightful steps through history, Wallace stresses that journalists have never been mere passive observers--the choices they make reflect worldviews tinted by race, class, gender, and geography. He upholds the centrality of facts and the necessary discipline of verification but argues against the long-held standard of "objective" media coverage that asks journalists to claim they are without bias. Using historical and contemporary examples--from lynching in the nineteenth century to transgender issues in the twenty-first--Wallace offers a definitive critique of "objectivity" as a catchall for accurate journalism. He calls for the dismissal of this damaging mythology in order to confront the realities of institutional power, racism, and other forms of oppression and exploitation in the news industry. Now more than ever, journalism that resists extractive, exploitive, and tokenistic practices toward marginalized people isn't just important--it is essential. Combining Wallace's intellectual and emotional journey with the wisdom of others' experiences, The View from Somewhere is a compelling rallying cry against journalist neutrality and for the validity of news told from distinctly subjective voices.
Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism by
"Inspiring reading for aspiring journalists and students of civil rights." -- Kirkus Reviews Wanda Smalls Lloyd's Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism--with a foreword by best-selling author Tina McElroy Ansa--is the memoir of an African American woman who grew up privileged and educated in the restricted culture of the American South in the 1950s-1960s. Her path was shaped by segregated social, community, and educational systems, religious and home training, a strong cultural foundation, and early leadership opportunities. Despite Jim Crow laws that affected where she lived, how she was educated, and what civil rights she would be denied, Lloyd grew up to realize her childhood dream of working as a professional journalist. In fact, she would eventually hold some of the nation's highest-ranking newspaper editorial positions and become one of the first African American women to be the top editor of a mainstream daily newspaper. Along the way she helped her newspapers and other media organizations understand how the lack of newsroom and staff diversity interfered with perceptions of accuracy and balance for their audiences. Her memoir is thus a window on the intersection of race, gender, culture and the media's role in our uniquely American experiment in democracy. How Lloyd excelled in a profession where high-ranking African American women were rare is a memorable story that will educate, entertain, and inspire. Coming Full Circle is a self-reflective exploration of the author's life journey from growing up in coastal Savannah, Georgia, to editing roles at seven daily newspapers around the country, and circling back to her retirement in Savannah, where she now teaches journalism to a new generation.
Alone Atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan, Pioneer of the National Black Press by
In 1942 Alice Allison Dunnigan, a sharecropper's daughter from Kentucky, made her way to the nation's capital and a career in journalism that eventually led her to the White House. With Alone atop the Hill, Carol McCabe Booker has condensed Dunnigan's 1974 self-published autobiography to appeal to a general audience and has added scholarly annotations that provide historical context. Dunnigan's dynamic story reveals her importance to the fields of journalism, women's history, and the civil rights movement and creates a compelling portrait of a groundbreaking American. Dunnigan recounts her formative years in rural Kentucky as she struggled for a living, telling bluntly and simply what life was like in a Border State in the first half of the twentieth century. Later she takes readers to Washington, D.C., where we see her rise from a typist during World War II to a reporter. Ultimately she would become the first black female reporter accredited to the White House; authorized to travel with a U.S. president; credentialed by the House and Senate Press Galleries; accredited to the Department of State and the Supreme Court; voted into the White House Newswomen's Association and the Women's National Press Club; and recognized as a Washington sports reporter. A contemporary of Helen Thomas and a forerunner of Ethel Payne, Dunnigan traveled with President Truman on his coast-to-coast, whistle-stop tour; was the first reporter to query President Eisenhower about civil rights; and provided front-page coverage for more than one hundred black newspapers of virtually every race issue before the Congress, the federal courts, and the presidential administration. Here she provides an uninhibited, unembellished, and unvarnished look at the terrain, the players, and the politics in a roughand- tumble national capital struggling to make its way through a nascent, postwar racial revolution.
The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama by
Veteran journalist Ifill sheds new light on the impact of Barack Obama's presidential victory and introduces the emerging African American politicians forging a new path to political power. Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, as well as numerous up-and-coming figures. Drawing on exclusive interviews with power brokers such as President Obama, Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, his son Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., and many others, as well as her own observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict, the race/gender clash, and the "black enough" conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in history.--From publisher description.
Jam on the Vine by
"So many historical novels read like connect-the-dots puzzles or costume dramas, so one that is fresh, original and time-travels to an undiscovered past is a real discovery...Jam On The Vine stands on its own as a powerful coming-of-age novel, and it is also a sharp reminder of the critically important role played by the African-American newspaper in American history."--Chicago Tribune "A captivating saga...The verdict: 'unforgettable'; 'gripping'; 'instant classic.'"--Elle "As addictive as your mom's fresh-baked buttermilk biscuits, and just as delicious."--Essence "A vivid depiction of the black experience during one of the ugliest periods in American race relations."--Knoxville News Sentinel A dynamic and compulsive debut, Jam on the Vine chronicles the life of trailblazing African American woman journalist, Ivoe Williams, through the start of the twentieth century. In unflinching prose, we follow Ivoe and her family from the Deep South to the Midwest. Jam on the Vine is both an epic vision of the injustices that defined an era and a compelling story of a complicated history we only thought we knew. "Ivoe is a splendid character, mouthy, determined, crusading and irrepressibly cheerful." -Wall Street Journal "A major work of fiction that entertains and edifies us, while it rescues a little-known story from the back pages of history."--Dallas Morning News "[A] big, bold bildungsroman of a debut."--The Guardian.com "If a historical fiction author's purpose is to give a reader a better understanding and empathy for the people of the time and place, then Barnett hit the mark."-The Missourian
John Henry Days: A Novel by
"Colson Whitehead delivers on the promise of his critically acclaimed debut in a magnificent new novel: a retelling of the legend of John Henry that sweeps across generations and cultures in a stunning, hilarious, and unsettling portrait of American society. ... John Henry, a black laborer for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, was a man of superhuman strength and stamina. ...The narrative revolves around the story of J. Sutter, a young black journalist. Sutter is a "junketeer," a freeloading hack who roams from one publicity event to another, abusing his expense account and mooching as much as possible. It is 1996, and an assignment for a travel Web site takes Sutter to West Virginia for the first annual "John Henry Days" festival, a celebration of a new U.S. postal stamp honoring John Henry. And there the real story of John Henry emerges in graceful counterpoint to Sutter's thoroughly modern adventure. As he explores the parallels between the lives of these two black men, and between the Industrial Age, which literally killed John Henry, and the Digital Age that is destroying J. Sutter's soul, Whitehead adds multiple dimensions to the myth of the steel-driving man. And in dazzling set pieces, he traces the evolution of the famous ballad over the past century."
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