Tens of thousands of mostly Black people converged on Jena, Louisiana on September 20, 2007. Drawing on our cache of articles from Black newspapers and mainstream newswires, we examine how the rally was covered. The sample is 44 mainstream newswire articles and 84 Black newspaper articles that mentioned the big rally in Jena. (More sample information at the bottom.) I present the information in graphical form and then include a table at the bottom in case you want to see the numbers.
First, I used keywords to capture the emphasis of the news reports, by comparing references to “Civil Rights,” Al Sharpton, the Jena 6 or Jena Six to the names of the boys themselves. I argue that the protest was news because it was seen as a historic revival of the Black movement. While the collective name Jena Six or Jena 6 is as common as Civil Rights in newswire articles and somewhat more common in Black newspaper articles, the names of the specific boys were much less often mentioned. Only Mychal Bell, who had been convicted and whose family had asked Al Sharpton to get involved, was named as often as Al Sharpton. The other boys were rarely mentioned, although more often mentioned by name in Black newspaper articles than in mainstream newswire articles.
Next, I used keywords to capture the different people, organizations, and communication mechanisms that had been discussed as relevant to mobilizing people to participate. Radio host Michael Baisden directly sought to get people to Jena and worked closely with Al Sharpton. Both Black newspapers and mainstream newswires gave a lot of attention to Al Sharpton, with the newswires giving proportionately more. Both source types also gave significant attention to Jesse Jackson, who attended the rally but was not one of the major organizers. Newswires gave little attention and Black newspapers more attention to the NAACP, which had been involved with the case from the beginning and was part of the organizing team, Michael Baisden, Rainbow/PUSH (Jesse Jackson’s organization), NAN (Al Sharpton’s organization), and the New Black Panthers (who were present but not part of the organizing team). Black newspapers gave some attention and newswires no attention or almost no attention to other Black groups involved in organizing the event, including Tom Joyner, the Nation of Islam, the Millions More Movement, people named Muhammad (who were generally associated with the Nation of Islam or the Millions More Movement), Alan Bean, ColorOfChange.org, and James Rucker. Black newspapers mentioned radio (which was clearly important) more than newswires did. The two source types were equally likely to mention blogs, but Internet, Facebook, and MySpace were more often mentioned in newswires. Black newspapers were much more likely than newswires to mention church or labor unions, both of which were grassroots groups that mobilized people to get to Jena. Black motorcycle clubs also came to Jena and they were only rarely mentioned, but more often in Black sources than newswires.
The final graph is words capturing how the significance of the event was described. The phrase “Civil Rights” was often used. I distinguished between the phrase “Civil Rights Movement”, Civil Rights followed by the word leader or organization, and Civil Rights followed by the word protest, march, rally, or demonstration. Both source types discussed the historic nature of the event in relation to historical events, but Black newspapers more often referred to the movement while mainstream newswires more often referred to a specific event (often just this event). I also find that Black newspapers were more interested in the idea that a new generation, young people or youth, were entering the movement and are significantly more likely to use terms referencing this. Black newspapers more than newswires also used the phrase “criminal justice” which Al Sharpton was quoted as saying would be the center of the new Civil Rights Movement.
The articles are part of our larger project. Newswire articles were drawn from three newswire services archived in Annotated English Gigaword, a research database. Black newspaper articles from 37 newspapers were retrieved from Proquest Ethnic NewsWatch. Methodological details are available in working papers linked to elsewhere on the site.
Here is the keyword data in table form
|
|
||||
|
Newswire |
BlackNews |
Total |
Test (Probability two-tailed) |
|
|
N |
44 |
84 |
128 |
|
|
Sharpton |
0.659 |
0.571 |
0.602 |
0.340 |
|
JesseJackson |
0.364 |
0.333 |
0.344 |
0.734 |
|
NAACP |
0.136 |
0.381 |
0.297 |
0.004 |
|
Baisden |
0.068 |
0.262 |
0.195 |
0.008 |
|
RainbowPUSH |
0.068 |
0.107 |
0.094 |
0.477 |
|
NAN |
0.045 |
0.250 |
0.180 |
0.004 |
|
SCLC |
0.068 |
0.131 |
0.109 |
0.283 |
|
Panther |
0.045 |
0.071 |
0.062 |
0.568 |
|
Joyner |
0.023 |
0.143 |
0.102 |
0.033 |
|
NatIslam |
0.023 |
0.095 |
0.070 |
0.130 |
|
Muhammad |
0.023 |
0.071 |
0.055 |
0.253 |
|
Bean |
0.000 |
0.071 |
0.047 |
0.070 |
|
MillionsMore |
0.000 |
0.048 |
0.031 |
0.144 |
|
ColorChange |
0.000 |
0.012 |
0.008 |
0.471 |
|
Rucker |
0.000 |
0.012 |
0.008 |
0.471 |
|
Radio |
0.227 |
0.333 |
0.297 |
0.215 |
|
Blog |
0.114 |
0.119 |
0.117 |
0.929 |
|
Internet |
0.159 |
0.119 |
0.133 |
0.530 |
|
|
0.068 |
0.012 |
0.031 |
0.083 |
|
MySpace |
0.045 |
0.000 |
0.016 |
0.049 |
|
Church |
0.114 |
0.250 |
0.203 |
0.069 |
|
LaborUnion |
0.023 |
0.202 |
0.141 |
0.005 |
|
Motorcycle |
0.023 |
0.036 |
0.031 |
0.691 |
|
CivilRights |
0.773 |
0.762 |
0.766 |
0.892 |
|
CivilRightsMovement |
0.182 |
0.274 |
0.242 |
0.252 |
|
CivilRightsLeaderOrg |
0.295 |
0.321 |
0.312 |
0.766 |
|
CivilRightsProtest |
0.250 |
0.083 |
0.141 |
0.010 |
|
JimCrow |
0.045 |
0.107 |
0.086 |
0.240 |
|
196X |
0.182 |
0.214 |
0.203 |
0.668 |
|
History |
0.227 |
0.274 |
0.258 |
0.571 |
|
Historic |
0.091 |
0.095 |
0.094 |
0.937 |
|
MillionMan |
0.000 |
0.071 |
0.047 |
0.070 |
|
Student |
0.932 |
0.917 |
0.922 |
0.764 |
|
College |
0.455 |
0.345 |
0.383 |
0.230 |
|
Child |
0.273 |
0.298 |
0.289 |
0.770 |
|
Parent |
0.432 |
0.357 |
0.383 |
0.413 |
|
Young |
0.273 |
0.619 |
0.500 |
<0.001 |
|
Youth |
0.295 |
0.476 |
0.414 |
0.049 |
|
YoungYouth |
0.455 |
0.738 |
0.641 |
0.001 |
|
Generation |
0.091 |
0.190 |
0.156 |
0.143 |
|
CriminalJustice |
0.091 |
0.238 |
0.188 |
0.043 |
|
Hatecrime |
0.295 |
0.310 |
0.305 |
0.871 |
|
JenaSix6 |
0.773 |
0.929 |
0.875 |
0.011 |
|
MychalBell |
0.659 |
0.631 |
0.641 |
0.755 |
|
RobertBailey |
0.068 |
0.190 |
0.148 |
0.065 |
|
BryantPurvis |
0.091 |
0.143 |
0.125 |
0.403 |
|
CarwinJones |
0.068 |
0.167 |
0.133 |
0.121 |
|
TheoShaw |
0.068 |
0.202 |
0.156 |
0.047 |
|
JesseBeard |
0.045 |
0.095 |
0.078 |
0.323 |
