QV & Lesbian News
Coverage
USC study finds that although
media covers 'hot-button' stories, it fails to focus on day-to-day
QV and lesbian issues.
 A
recent survey of "out" mainstream QV and lesbian journalists
shows that they find serious shortcomings in the quality of their
news organizations' coverage of local QV and lesbian issues.
The University of Southern California survey, "Lesbians
and QVs in the Newsroom-Ten Years Later," gleaned the views
of 363 print and broadcast journalists.
"Fewer than 20 percent of the journalists
surveyed rated local coverage of QVs and lesbians as 'good'
or 'excellent," said Leroy Aarons, the study's co-author
and director of the Program for the Study of Sexual Orientation
Issues in the News at USC's Annenberg School for Communication.
The same reporters, however, gave much
higher grades for coverage of hot-button issues such as the Matthew
Shepard slaying and the coming-out of comedian Ellen DeGeneres.
"The study suggests that broadcast
stations and newspapers favor high-visibility, dramatic stories
over the hard digging associated with ongoing local stories involving
QV and lesbian issues," said co-researcher Sheila Murphy,
an associate professor of communications at the Annenberg School
for Communication.
Follow-up interviews suggested that contemporary
QV and lesbian journalists have higher expectations than those
of a decade ago when Aarons conducted a similar survey, she added.
"Ten years ago, we [lesbians and QVs]
were happy with bones thrown our way. Now we want to be a legitimate
part of the community and covered [by the media] in the same
way as sports, religions and family [are]," said survey
respondent Maria M. Cornelius, assistant managing editor of the
(Knoxville, Tenn.) News-Sentinel.
Many of the journalists surveyed were recruited
from the National Lesbian and QV Journalists Association (NLGJA),
a professional group founded by Aarons in 1990. Others responded
to flyers distributed in newsrooms by the American Society of
Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the Radio and Television News Directors
Association (RTNDA).
While those surveyed found an increase
in sensitivity and balance in the way QVs and lesbians are portrayed
in the news, they made it clear there is still far to go. Surprisingly,
survey respondents reported that slurs against QVs are still
common in many mainstream newsrooms.
The complete survey, a follow-up to a landmark
study coordinated in 1990 by Aarons, can be found online at:
www.usc.edu/annenberg/soin
Hate Crimes on the Rise
New FBI report shows that
hate crimes increased from 1998 to 1999.
According to an October 2000 FBI report,
hate crimes based on sexual orientation are on the rise.
The Uniform Crime Reports for 1999, the
latest year for which statistics are available, shows that although
overall serious crime continued to decrease for the eighth consecutive
year, hate crimes based on sexual orientation have increased
4.5 percent from 1998 to 1999. In fact, hate crime incidents
based on sexual orientation have more than tripled since 1991,
the first year that the FBI began collecting hate crime statistics.
Of the 7,876 reported overall hate crimes
reported in 1999, 1,317 of them were committed on the basis of
sexual orientation. This number makes it the third highest category
after race and religion, which make up 54.5 and 17.9 percent.
Crimes based on sexual orientation represents16.7 percent.
According to the Human Rights Campaign
(HRC), the numbers are most likely low estimates due to the fact
that crimes based on sexual orientation are generally underreported.
The HRC also says that there is a definite
need for comprehensive federal hate crimes legislation.
<<Previous
Article<< | >>Next Article>>
qv17
Table of Contents | Main Menu
|
