joemillerjd

Law, media, politics and culture.

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Will New York City's New Country Radio Station Attract Hispanic Listeners?

This is interesting both politically and in the context of country music's ongoing battle to adjust to changing demographics, as the format has historically targeted a predominantly non-Hispanic, white audience. Lew Dickey, CEO of Cumulus Media told the NY Times, in discussing his company's rationale for making this format change: "We’re not just talking to people on the Upper West Side." The subtext ... "We're not just targeting liberals" as the presumption is Country is a format that appeals to more conservative listeners, so why launch a country format in a liberal city? Indeed, country will appeal to non-Hispanic, white suburban listeners as it always had, but New York City radio is big business and historically, if you can't get a good listener base in the City as well as the suburbs, station owners will usually balk.  

The last country station in the New York City metro went off the air in 1996.  Now, 17 years later, Cumulus Media has reformatted WRXP-FM to country, dubbing it NASH 94.7.  But between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the non-Hispanic, white population in the city overall declined by 2.8%. So where is the audience?  

  Well, country music executives have been debating for some time the best strategy for appealing to Hispanic listeners.  Republicans, too, have been struggling with how to reach Hispanic voters.  Meanwhile, the Hispanic population in NYC increased by 8.1% during the same period.  

  Country radio may be an excellent platform for reaching Hispanic listeners, especially Hispanic independent voters, and persuading them to vote conservatively.  In addition to finally filling the void for country among non-Hispanic, white listeners, this will be a test for how to reach Hispanic voters via politically-neutral content.

  [via NY Times]

  "Country music is all over television, on dramas like “Nashville” and talent competitions like “American Idol.” Country stars are among the most consistent moneymakers in the concert industry. The genre’s growing sales are among the few bright lights of the music industry."

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Media and Gun Policy?: A Conversation with Charlton McIlwain

Photo: Charlton McIlwain, Associate Professor, Media Culture and Communication at New York University

How did media policy and gun policy merge?  POLITICO's Mike Allen (@MikeAllen) reports Vice President Biden will meet with former Sen. Chris Dodd of the Motion Picture Association of America; National Cable Television Association CEO and former FCC Chairman Michael Powell; Comcast lobbyist David Cohen; National Association of Theatre Owners CEO John Fithian; Directors Guild of America Executive Director Jay Roth; and National Association of Broadcasters CEO and former GOP Senator from Oregon Gordon Smith at 6PM tonight.

When we add race to the mix, the whole issue gets even more confusing. Take Quentin Tarantino's new film “Django Unchained.”  Here's a clip:

 The film has received mixed reviews on its portrayals of African-Americans and of violence against whites.  Spike Lee, in an interview on VIBETV, called the movie “disrespectful.” 

Commentary about Django and the gun control debate stemming from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have together underscored a chilling relationship between racism and gun control.  According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Small Arms Survey, even though the United States makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, it is “home to 35-50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns.”  The U.S. also has the highest gun ownership rate worldwide, averaging 88 guns per 100 people.

Despite a spate of gun violence in recent years, including the Sandy Hook shooting, Pew Research Center for People and the Press reports only a modest change in how Americans view gun control policy. While more Americans favor gun control (49%) compared to those who believe protecting the right to own guns (42%) is more important, this rate has barely changed from the rate of 49% and 45%, respectively, in April, 2009—before the shootings in Tucson (January, 2011) and Aurora (July, 2012). 

Still, the Sandy Hook shootings led to widespread public outcry for tighter gun control laws.  In response, National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre blamed Hollywood and the media industry for gun violence.  Marion Hammer, a former NRA president, equated gun laws with racism, suggesting that, similar to Jim Crow laws, gun laws are about preserving preferred “cosmetics.”  In an interview with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, Tarantino said blaming Hollywood for gun violence is “disrespectful.”  Reverend Louis Farrakhan said the film was a “preparation for a race war” by creating fodder to justify gun ownership by whites who fear a backlash by African-Americans.  Interestingly, according to Pew, African-Americans favor tighter gun control laws over protecting gun rights at a rate of 68% to 24%, while the rate among whites is 51% to 42%. 

I sat down with Professor Charlton McIlwain, Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU to demystify some of this ...

Me: Can you help us understand a little bit more about the racial frame of gun control and the way the issue has historically been presented in the media?

CM: What comes to mind are two dominant and different sets of images when it comes to race, guns and the media. I think of the Blaxploitation films of the seventies and the gangsta films of the late 1980s-1990s, both express the prevailing association between African Americans and guns. In the first instance, they are the feared, gun-toting, brutal black buck looking to kill “Whitey” (as an aside, “gun control” and other kinds of weapons prohibitions were common in the post-slavery era because of fears of violent retribution). In the second, they are violent, murderous thugs shooting up their own neighborhoods and own “kind.” On the other side of the color line is the image of the Cowboy. He’s white, rides alone, is skilled with a six-shooter and associated either with upholding the law, fighting the law on the behalf of wronged citizens, or fighting the law to get his just due (which is whatever he wants; he is entitled to it all).

These two racially divergent media images I think frame the way we think about race, guns and gun control in the U.S., and the way that gun violence gets reported in the news media.

I walked into my favorite coffee shop a couple of days ago, and a guy that always likes to engage me in political discussion showed me a headline about the recent spate of shootings in Chicago. He showed me the paper and said,“no amount of gun control is going to stop that!” His assumption reflects the broader sense that black (and brown) gun violence is simply the expected outcome of a deficient culture, one that couldn’t be helped by any form of legislation. But it also reflects the sense that such violence is restricted to “those” people, “those” neighborhoods, and therefore there is little for those outside of those neighborhoods to fear. The fact is that gun violence, tragic gun deaths, and the senseless killing of innocents in these neighborhoods do not attract broad media attention.

However, because the association between whites and guns has historically been a positive one, it is gun violence against white victims that draws more media attention and cries of “tragedy.” More importantly however, the perpetrators in those instances are always – like the rugged Western individual – reflective only of their own individual problems, such as mental illness. We don’t talk about white-on-white crime; we talk about a solitary individual whose acts are an aberration.

Okay, so what does this mean for gun control? Well, for one, it means we see gun control as a necessity primarily to protect white citizens and white neighborhoods. It also means that people oppose gun control by evoking the historical association between whites and guns, not non- whites. Guns and gun owners are seen as essentially law abiding and patriotic. Thus, limiting access, the argument goes, is an affront to patriotism.

Me: You’ve written about the role of the media in using race to affect the national dialogue about Barack Obama’s candidacy. You noted that the infamous New Yorker cartoon casting Michelle and Barack Obama as militants invoked imagery associated with white fears rooted in terrorism and the black power movement.  How does Django trigger some of that same imagery?

CM: I believe it does, though in a way that is perhaps more real than even that New Yorker cartoon. The Imagery in Django – the storyline itself – speaks to and triggers what is at the heart of white people who fear of blacks. It is that thought that black people – black men especially – hold a simmering grudge against white people because of slavery. The perpetual fear is that any black man, at any time, might act on that. And so even though Django tells the story of a man who justifiably goes after the woman stolen from him, the prevailing image is still of a black armed man looking to do violence and repay the white man for the horrors he inflicted on him. It is consistent with, and reinforces what we already think about black men in particular.

Me: Pew Research Center has also reported a rise in the number of people who get their news from social networking sites, as opposed to newspapers.  They also reported that 69% of Internet users in the U.S. use social media and 45% of adults own a smartphone, so the landscape has changed very much in terms of how media is consumed.  So do you think the effect of the film industry on the way racial issues are perceived is offset in any way by the use of social media? Or do you think our use of social media exacerbates a largely negative national dialogue about race?

CM: Well, I think that social media technology and those who use it have the potential to challenge these prevailing images and associations. But I believe it’s an uphill battle. For one, the science behind implicit associations demonstrates that these racial associations – particularly between black and violence – are extremely strong, so much a part of our psyche that we often aren’t even aware of it. And so it will take much to ameliorate decades of collective racial conditioning. Second, I think the prevailing pattern with social media thus far shows that those with the biggest megaphone wield the most influence. Hollywood and traditional media still have the biggest megaphones, the greatest reach and the loudest voice. If you look at Twitter, for instance. Who dominates Twitter? Celebrities and big television and print media outlets. And so those same images are likely to still be dominant in their circulation. But social media, digital media tools are probably the most democratic tool that citizens have at our disposal and so I think we can use it to challenge those images. But to do so often and effectively will take a concerted effort by citizens to both produce and circulate counter-images and critiques at the same rate and volume as traditional mass media have and continue to do.

Me:  Thanks for joining me.

CM:  Thank you.

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Are Lawyers More Like Entrepreneurs or Poor Saps?

Abby Rogers over at Business Insider, citing several employment statistics, questions the value of going to law school.

With all due respect, I’m not sure if Ms. Rogers went to law school and is dissatisfied with where it has gotten her. If she is dissatisfied, then I suppose she is not happy with her alternative career as a journalist. If that is the case, there is nothing stopping her from doing something else.

However, if she is not a lawyer, then this article is the best form of flattery for lawyers because it means it is coming from someone who a) did not have the guts (or interest) in going to law school themselves, AND b) is unhappy about the fact they did not have the guts (or interest) in going to law school themselves. This is not a knock on people who do not have law degrees—mature people without law degrees are too busy managing their own careers to be able to find time to belittle the careers others have chosen.

This is not a defense of law schools. The tuition they charge is unconscionable. But so is the tuition of undergraduate institutions. For example, Sarah Lawrence costs over $60K per year to attend. This is for an undergraduate degree. Why does the tuition at Sarah Lawrence seem so much more palatable?

Is it a veil of meritocracy that forecloses criticism of schools like Sarah Lawrence? That notion is unworkable, since law school graduates who become lawyers are required to pass the mother of all standardized tests: the bar exam.

So law school may or may not be the best investment to make—that depends on each person. But we certainly don’t criticize entrepreneurs for taking risks. I would venture to say the success rate for entrepreneurs is even lower than the success rate of new lawyers looking for a job Business Insider thinks is legitimate. Why aren’t lawyers who don’t get a glamorous job right out of law school considered to be more like entrepreneurs than poor saps? It seems to me the answer lies in the ego’s need to tear people down to satisfy one’s own feeling of inferiority rather than any objective difference between the entrepreneur's mindset and the mindset required to embark on any difficult journey toward personal and professional growth.

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Columbia Journalism Review graces us with its presence on media ownership

Responsible media policy isn’t about protecting the status quo for the stodgy interests of Columbia University, FCC alumni, and newspapers that, for years, have done quite well. It is about serving the public interest. And for the same number of years newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch and the Sulzbergers have been fat and happy, advocates for media ownership diversity have fought for better policies to reduce discrimination against women and people of color who have sought to own stations.

Other advocates have fought for newsroom diversity, but newspapers like The New York Times (a Columbia Journalism Review backer) have and continue to routinely discriminate against women and people of color working in their newsrooms. Policymakers have sat on their hands when it comes to new entrants and equal opportunity. But when it comes to deregulation, now there’s something that has to be done RIGHT AWAY!

Deregulating the media industry is just another strategy to protect the interests at the very top of the food chain, while everyone else can wait. That is why the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, whose membership is comprised of 200+ civil rights organizations and unions, including the Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America, NAACP, and the American Civil Liberties Union, has opposed the FCC’s proposed relaxation of the media ownership rules. And they did not need the blessing of the ivy league, FCC alumni, or even Free Press, to do so.

Here’s CJR’s post.

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Can You Hear Us Now? Communications Policy and the Criminal Justice System

Photo Credit: "One Call" by abardwell via Flickr

Talk about convergence.  Not only has the Internet changed the way Americans consume content, it is also changing the criminal justice system. 

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.  According to the 33-country Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. incarceration rate is 760 prisoners per 100,000 population.  Only 3 of the remaining OECD countries have incarceration rates above 250 per 100,000. These include Israel (325 per 100,000), Chile (317 per 100,000) and Estonia (273 per 100,000).  African-American and Hispanic men (3,074 per 100,000 and 1,258 per 100,000, respectively) comprise a disproportionate share of American prisoners, compared to just 459 per 100,000 of white men.

Policymakers should continue to monitor how the ways law enforcement officers use technology may perpetuate flaws in the criminal justice system.  Several developments over the past month shed light on these considerations.

Privacy

The Fourth Amendment states “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” The warrant requirement for law enforcement officers conducting investigations in the physical world is well settled, even as the law surrounding exceptions to the warrant requirement is more complex. However, the extent of Fourth Amendment protection online and on devices is murkier.

The New York Times published an article discussing the patchwork of confusing, and often contradictory, laws around the country governing law enforcement’s warrantless use of cell phone data, including New York City’s practice of keeping cell phone theft victims’ phone data beyond the data needed to investigate and prosecute the theft.  The New York City Police Department is also notorious for its “Stop and Frisk” practices.  According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, black and Latino New York residents “made up close to 90 percent of people stopped and about 88 percent of those stops were of innocent New Yorkers.”

To address the challenges of privacy and Fourth Amendment policy in the digital age, policymakers are considering legislation to amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). ECPA, enacted in 1986, was designed to restrict the ability of the federal government to use computer data and stored electronic communications in investigations.  But ECPA currently requires no probable cause and no warrants for law enforcement to obtain things like stored photographs, data from Facebook pages, and draft documents shared with third parties like Dropbox and Google.    

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment to ECPA that would require police to obtain a warrant before searching suspects’ emails.  The Senate is not anticipated to vote on the ECPA amendment until next year, but this is important progress toward ensuring the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement applies to data and devices.

Recording Police Activity

The past month has also seen an important development in the role personal audiovisual recordings might play in documenting police misconduct.

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to review a Seventh Circuit ruling that the First Amendment includes the right to record the actions of police officers while they are on duty and in public. Illinois’ eavesdropping law had made recording police officers a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The Seventh Circuit held that “the act of making an audio or audiovisual recording is necessarily included within the First Amendment’s guarantee of speech and press rights as corollary of the right to disseminate the resulting recording.”

Earlier this year, the City of Boston agreed to pay $170,000 in damages and legal fees to a man, Simon Glick, who was arrested for recording police officers in public. The settlement followed a First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimous ruling that Glick had a “constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public.”

Prison Phone Justice

The families of inmates are silent victims.  Incarceration removes a reliable source of household income and separates parents from their children.  One aspect of the effect of incarceration on families is the stratospheric rates telephone companies charge for collect calls made by inmates. 

One study conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center of prison phone rates in Louisiana  found these fees to be 15 times higher (30 cents per minute versus 2 cents per minute) than they are for collect calls made outside prison walls.  In September, FCC Commissioner Clyburn urged FCC Chairman Genachowski to cut prison phone rates. On November 15th, the FCC announced at a rally led by the Center for Media Justice that it would seek public comment on prison phone rates.  Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) attended a screening of a new film entitled “Middle of Nowhere” on the Hill earlier this week.  The film depicts the inner conflicts a mother encounters while her husband is serving an eight-year sentence.

Far too many people of color are in prisons in the United States. That makes the use of information and communications technology by law enforcement a matter of particular interest to people of color. The developments discussed here show policymakers taking constructive steps to improve how the criminal justice system uses technology. But information technology—and its uses—evolve rapidly, which means we need careful oversight of how these tools are used in the criminal justice system.

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CA's Violent Arrest Rate Down Following Marijuana Decriminalization

Photo Source: "Batur Volcano and Lake" by Jessy Eykendorp on Flickr 

California's legalization of marijuana has led to steep declines in violent crime arrests among all racial groups, especially among African-American youth.  It is at its lowest rate since 1979, shortly before the "War on Drugs" commenced, which resonates today as police disproportionately target communities of color, even as inner city youth show less propensity to sell and use drugs than their suburban counterparts.

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How to Say 'Hot Chocolate' in New York

Photo Source: cream-style.tumblr.com via Marlene on Pinterest

Some say, “hot chocolate.” Others say, “hot cocoa.” In New York, the way you pronounce it also means a lot. Here’s a list of the pronunciations you need to maintain your street cred.

Staten Island/Brooklyn/Queens: Hot chawclit

Manhattan (96th and below): Hot cocoa or Hot chawclit

Manhattan (Uptown/The Bronx): Hot CHOCKlit

Really important stuff, guys. Take note.

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Media Ownership in Black and White: Data Dodges and Double Standards

Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley via Flickr

Deregulatory initiatives seem to move much faster at the FCC than efforts to improve media ownership diversity. The FCC is expected to relax its long-standing blanket ban on the ownership of a broadcast station and a newspaper in the same market even though minority and female media ownership data on how it will affect “viewpoint diversity” is sparse.  Relaxing the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule (NBCO) seems inconsistent with federal case law requiring the agency to gather enough background information on minority and female media ownership before changing other media ownership rules.

Congress has mandated that the FCC must review its media ownership rules every four years (i.e.“quadrennially”), to ensure enforcing the rules remains in the public interest.  The current Quadrennial Review began in 2010 and the Commission issued proposed rules last December.  Among these proposed rules is a relaxation of NBCO.

This is not the first time the FCC has attempted to relax NBCO.  In 2008, following its 2006 Quadrennial Review, the FCC went so far as to issue an order relaxing NBCO.  That time, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Prometheus II, sent the new rules back to the Commission because the Commission had not complied with Administrative Procedures Act (APA) provisions requiring federal agencies to notify the public that new rules have been proposed and allowing the public to comment on the proposed rules before issuing a final order. 

The current proposed rule from the 2010 Quadrennial Review to relax NBCO would end the complete ban on owning a newspaper and broadcast station in the same market by allowing exceptions to the rule in instances where owning a newspaper and broadcast station in the same market would “carry public interest benefits.” The FCC would assess, on a case-by-case basis, whether proposals to own a broadcast station and a newspaper in the same market affect “viewpoint diversity”. This time, the rule underwent the APA-mandated notice and comment process, and the FCC is expected to vote on the final order before the end of the year.  FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski sent a draft of the NBCO order to the 4 other FCC Commissioners on Wednesday. 

But the Court in Prometheus II also ruled that the FCC failed to “examine the relevant data [on broadcast ownership by minorities and women] and articulate a satisfactory explanation” for defining a term in a different proceeding.  In its 2008 Diversity Order, the FCC defined the meaning of the term “eligible entities” to give effect to several rules applying to prospective buyers of broadcast stations. In enacting these rules, the FCC claimed they would increase the number of stations owned by minorities and women. But the Court reasoned that the FCC provided no data on minority and female ownership that would support its claim that its eligible entity rules would lead to an increase in minority and female station ownership. In fact, the Court held, the FCC’s eligible entities definition was not likely to have an effect on minority and female media ownership at all.  The Court thus concluded that the eligible entity definition was “arbitrary and capricious” and remanded it, along with the APA-deficient NBCO rules, back to the FCC.

It could similarly be argued that the FCC has not used minority and female audience data to satisfactorily explain the effect that relaxing NBCO would have in improving viewpoint diversity, since minority and female ownership data is an element of viewpoint diversity. As the Court noted in Prometheus II, the FCC has itself maintained that “diversification of ownership would enhance the possibility of achieving greater diversity of viewpoints.”  

It has taken nearly two decades for the FCC to release a 16-page report on minority and female media ownership.  Also on Wednesday, the FCC issued a long-awaited minority and female media ownership report showing that white media ownership increased while minority media ownership decreased.  Blacks own just .7% of commercial television stations, compared to the 69.4% of television stations owned by whites. Latinos own just 2.9% of commercial TV stations. Whites also own 80% of AM and FM stations. But this report comes 17 years after the Supreme Court decided Adarand v. Peña, in which the Court held that laws including racial classifications must satisfy “strict scrutiny.” This standard requires the FCC to exhaust race neutral alternatives before considering race conscious initiatives to improve minority media ownership. The short report the FCC released on Wednesday is but a small step toward fulfilling that mandate. Indeed, the report suggests that revising NBCO would actually hurt viewpoint diversity even further by bolstering large newspapers and broadcast outlets even as minority and female ownership has stagnated and, in some cases, declined.

Why should the FCC be required to develop such a robust database on minority and female ownership to support its eligible entities definition but not its changes to NBCO?  More than 200 civil rights organizations had the same question, which is why they filed a letter at the Commission last week urging it to consider minority and female media ownership when it revises any of its media ownership rules. 

This is no time for the FCC to procrastinate even further in developing a reliable database on minority and female media ownership. It should begin to do so immediately, before it relaxes anymore ownership rules and further dilutes the weight of minority and female ownership data. 

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Media D*versity

[Photo Credit: "Colourful Viewpoint" by Michael Gil on Flickr]

Media advocacy has always focused on the shortcomings of regulators and media giants.  Although the faults of both regulators and the media industry are significant, advocates rarely discuss the role candidates for national office might play in rousing interest in media diversity among the electorate.

How long should we wait for a regulatory or industry-led initiative to improve media diversity? Despite its mandate under Section 257 of the Communications Act, the Federal Communications Commission has failed to collect and aggregate minority ownership data in a form the public can use.  With the exception of tiny glimmers of change in newsroom diversity, hiring, retention and promotion diversity at top media companies is dismal. Among Diversity Inc.’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity 2012, Cox Communications (#25) and Time Warner (#40) were the only media companies listed. Factoring in companies that are more relevant in a converged media industry, AT&T (#4) and Verizon Communications (#39) were also featured.  But there is really not much need to look further than the senior management teams of top media companies, which are overwhelmingly white (see Disney, Comcast , Time Warner, News Corporation, Viacom) despite the fact that minorities comprise 27.6 percent of the U.S. population, to see the lack of racial, ethnic and gender diversity among those who control so much of what we see and hear. 

But the most daunting challenge for policymakers is not to confirm whether these disparities exist—everyone knows they do—it is to address the underlying reasons for the lack of a political impetus to address them.

Why don’t we care? Despite the central role of the media in democratic politics, made clear by the record amounts of money the Obama and Romney campaigns have spent on political advertising, media diversity is frankly not that high up on the average American’s priority list.  A recent Time Warner Cable report finds that, while subscriber survey respondents were willing to pay $25 more per month for general, “opinion” diversity, they were willing to pay just $7 more per month for any improvement in "information that reflects the interests of women and minorities."

The demographics of most media companies’ senior ranks bear little resemblance to the demographic cross-section of the public media executives work tirelessly to reach.  According to 4th Estate.net, which evaluated front page stories from 38 different newspapers between January and mid-October, 2012, non-white reporters wrote a paltry 9% of stories on the economy, 9.2% of stories on social issues, and 7.3% of stories about foreign policy.  Most startlingly, 98.2% of stories on immigration—an issue that is most contentious with respect to U.S. policies toward Latino immigrants—were written by white reporters. Why is the state of diversity in the media so discouraging? Do the media lack diversity because there is a lack of consumer demand for it? Or is it the other way around—has the media industry suppressed demand for diversity to preserve its control by non-minorities? 

This is more than just a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum. The lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the media is a consequence of post-racial politics.

If a candidate perceives a particular initiative will secure a substantial number of votes from a powerful racial constituency, historically that candidate will make the issue resonate with voters.  For some, the race appeal is made using racial code language. Richard Nixon’s White House Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, famously noted: “[T]he whole problem is really the blacks.  The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”  Thus, while the Supreme Court has encouraged states to pursue race-neutral policies to achieve diversity, politicians have actually turned that doctrine on its head: some politicians have advanced racial-neutral initiatives—such as the “War on Drugs” or the fight against “Voter Fraud”—to perpetuate inequality.    

Ohio State Moritz College of Law Professor Michelle Alexander has done extensive research on the means by which some policies without a specific racial component have actually perpetuated the same disparities that were so prevalent during the Jim Crow era. Specifically, Ms. Alexander has argued that, despite the fact that drug crimes were actually declining, the Reagan administration decided in 1982 to pursue Nixon’s idea of a War on Drugs to garner the votes of whites who felt threatened by the advances of the Civil Rights Movement.  President Bill Clinton carried the torch, trying to convince white voters that he would be even tougher on drugs and crime than his Republican predecessors. 

The current fight against “Voter Fraud” is another campaign some believe is racially-encoded and designed to suppress minority votes. These kinds of race-neutral campaigns leave their opponents in the unenviable position of being on the defensive having to assert a racial impact in an environment in which the mere mention of race is frowned upon.

The post-racial nature of today’s political discourse precludes politicians from addressing race head-on. Politicians are unlikely to explicitly address race in their campaigns as there is a fair risk that doing so would be considered taboo—or, at best, impolite—and alienate voters.  Accordingly, media diversity has been relegated to the bottom of the pile of campaign initiatives candidates are likely to advance.  This is unfortunate since politicians play such a powerful role in legitimating even the most dubious platforms.

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For NYC, Climate Change is Nothing New

New York City has been undergoing climate change for at least 75,000 years, when vast sheets of ice began to give way to an ecosystem we do not recognize. This passage from "Gotham" by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace vivifies how extensive that climate change has been and continues to be (note Adriaen Van der Donck's skepticism about climate change in the 17th century):  "Travelers spoke of vast meadows of grass 'as high as a mans middle' and forests with towering stands of walnut, cedar, chestnut, maple, and oak. Orchards bore apples of incomparable sweetness and 'pears larger than a fist.' Every spring the hills and fields were dyed red with ripening strawberries, and so many birds filled the woods 'that men can scarcely go through them for the whistling, the noise, and the chattering.' Boats crossing the bay were escorted by schools of playful whales, seals, and porpoises. Twelve-inch oysters and six-foot lobsters crowded offshore waters,

 and so many fish thrived in streams and ponds that they could be taken by hand. Woods and tidal marshlands teemed with bears, wolves, foxes, raccoons, otters, beavers, quail, partridge, forty-pound wild turkeys, doves 'so numerous that the light can hardly be discerned where they fly,' and countless deer 'feeding, or gamboling or resting in the shades in full view.' Wild swans were so plentiful 'that the bays and shores where they resort appear as if they were dressed in white drapery.' Blackbirds roosted together in such numbers that one hunter killed 170 with a single shot; another bagged eleven sixteen-pound gray geese in the same way. 'There are some persons who imagine that the animals of the country will be destroyed in time,' mused Van der Donck, 'but this is an unnecessary anxiety.'"

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Political Ad Revenues: Do Minority Media Outlets Benefit?

With less than two weeks remaining before Election Day, the presidential candidates and Super PACs have spent nearly $1 billion on advertising, enriching broadcast station owners in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  Combined total outside spending by Super PACs placing ads on behalf of the candidates has topped $800 million. The Washington Post reports that over the last three weeks, the Obama and Romney campaigns have spent $40 million and $49 million, respectively on advertising time in swing states.  But, without unraveling confusing datasets from at least two separate federal agencies, it is almost impossible for the average person to determine how much of that money is being spent on broadcast stations owned by minorities.

 While the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) requires anyone buying broadcast advertising time in excess of $10,000 on behalf of a political candidate to report, within 24 hours, the “amount of each disbursement of more than $200 … and the identification of the person to whom the disbursement was made” it is almost impossible to cross-reference this data with data the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) collects on minority station ownership.  First, the name of the individual listed in the FEC records would have to match the name of the station owner in the FCC’s database.  If the names do not match, one would then need to ascertain whether the individual listed in the FEC’s records is a minority owner by sifting through public records and possibly other documents, which might still prove inconclusive.

Scholars have noted the unwieldy nature of evaluating the FCC’s records alone, not to mention attempting to cross-tabulate that data with the data of other agencies.  In a November 2009 study, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) and Professors Catherine Sandoval and Allen Hammond of the Santa Clara University School of Law recommended that the FCC improve the FCC’s databases in order to “enhance the ability to analyze [minority media ownership] trends over time and among a wide range of broadcasters.” 

Another layer of the dynamic between political advertisers and minority media outlets is the FCC’s ban on “no-urban and no-Spanish dictates” (NUDs/NSDs)—the practice of advertisers bypassing stations targeting black and Latino audiences.  A 2007 FCC order outlawed the use of NUDs/NSDs by requiring commercial broadcasters to include in their license renewal applications an affirmation that their agreements with advertisers did not intentionally discriminate on the basis of race. Many polls show that black and Latino voters favor President Obama by significant margins (see here and here). On this basis, it is conceivable that the campaigns may have concluded that allocating their broadcast advertising budgets elsewhere would likely deliver a more efficient schedule.

Still, although targeting specific audiences is a fundamental aspect of broadcast advertising transactions, it is certainly worth considering whether any allocation of political spending away from urban and Latino-targeted radio and tv stations might be excessive. For example, if Arbitron or Nielsen research shows that a station targeting a predominantly minority audience has lower ratings relative to a competing mass appeal station, a campaign official might, rather than failing to further consider the station targeting a predominantly minority audience, seek to discover whether it boasts a large number of minority listeners who are undecided voters.  Similarly, campaign officials might also seek to evaluate whether stations targeting a predominantly minority audience may be ripe for get out the vote (GOTV) operations.  Current concerns about voter suppression activities make the case for placing ads educating minority listeners about their voting rights.

Political advertisements, especially those placed during presidential election seasons, contribute a significant amount of revenue to stations’ bottom lines.  Minority-owned stations should suffer few impediments to their fair share of those revenues.  

[joemillerjd-blog]

Distance Learning in a Post-Affirmative Action World

[James Meredith attends one of his first classes at the University of Mississippi after becoming the first African-American to attend the university in 1962.]

In its forthcoming opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas, the Supreme Court may strike down the University of Texas’ affirmative action program.  In the post-affirmative action landscape that would result, universities would be forced to be much more creative in their pursuit of “race-neutral” alternatives. 

The internet and technology have drastically changed the educational landscape in the years since President Kennedy first introduced the concept of affirmative action to the nation in 1961: In Executive Order 10925, Kennedy  required government agencies to take “affirmative action” to ensure their hiring practices were free of racial bias. While an end to affirmative action would be a setback to addressing persistent disparities in education, technology has evolved in a way that can help level the playing field.

Distance learning—education provided by universities via the Internet—could be among a panoply of race-neutral mechanisms to affirmative action at public universities.  But sparse funding for public colleges and universities to invest in distance learning and the structure of the distance learning industry serve to drive African-American students away from affordable public education toward widely criticized, for-profit schools.

The Court has held that educational diversity is a compelling interest for universities to pursue. Justice O’Connor wrote in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action program, that educational diversity promotes “cross-racial understanding, helps to break down racial stereotypes, and enables students to better understand students of different races.”  However, given the stances against affirmative action that Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Scalia and Kennedy have taken in the past, the Court may severely limit, if not eliminate entirely, the use of race as a factor in college admissions. 

Striking down UT’s affirmative action policy would bring the use of race in college admissions within the aegis of the same “strict scrutiny” standard that already applies to government contracting which the Court articulated in Adarand v. Peña.  Under that standard, state actors must seriously consider “race-neutral alternatives” before implementing race-conscious remedies in their efforts to improve diversity.

The goal of affirmative action in public education has always been about providing affordable access to quality education to those who are faced with well-documented barriers to academic achievement.  While distance learning has not yet evolved into being a complete substitute for learning in a classroom setting, public universities must invest in distance learning platforms to stay competitive. Students seeking flexibility—such as students working full-time and providing for their families—naturally perceive that their educational needs would be met more effectively by schools with the most robust online learning platforms. Large private universities realize this, which is why MIT and Harvard have invested $30 million in edX, a nonprofit providing free access to hundreds of online courses offered by highly selective public and private universities.

But edX and other similar “massive open online courses,” or MOOCs, such as Coursera (founded by two Stanford computer science faculty members), do not offer degrees. This has created a huge market for for-profit colleges whose business models are based on distance learning.

Among all types of colleges, for-profits boast the largest percentage of African-American students: Twenty-seven percent of students at for-profit colleges are African-American, compared to 11% of students at public, 4-year colleges and 12% of students at private, not-for-profit, 4-year colleges.  Paradoxically, for-profit colleges boast lower graduation rates and higher rates of unemployment and student loan indebtedness among their alumni.  Further, a recent Senate investigation found that students of for-profit colleges represent an astonishing 47% of student loan defaults, even though they only comprise 13% of all college enrollees. 

These trends point to the need for public universities to be able to thrive on their own and develop their own MOOCs.  Without the resources to invest in their own distance learning platforms, these universities have no choice but to, as in the cases of edX and Coursera, enter into cooperative agreements with the very same private universities against which public universities were created to compete. This stifles the ability of public universities to develop competing MOOCs and evolve to fulfill the needs of students.  At the same time, less selective public colleges offering quality programs, but which lack the funding to invest in MOOCs, and lack partnerships with dominant players, like edX and Coursera, are left without recourse to adapt.  Thus, students seeking flexibility, who do not qualify for admission solely under the objective criteria that are skewed in favor of wealthier students, will be incentivized to resort to predatory for-profits to meet their need for flexibility and an actual degree. 

Affirmative action programs have been a response to scarcity. Deciding who is entitled to receive a high quality education is a species of the limitations imposed by real property (i.e. the scarcity of seats in an entering class). Distance learning does not imply these same barriers. But while distance learning is not a panacea to an absence of affirmative action policies, prospective students will assuredly give strong preference to colleges offering strong distance learning programs. 

The Court's decision in Fisher v. University Texas will lead to drastic changes in how universities pursue diversity.  The potential for distance learning in public higher education to nudge students away from unscrupulous education providers is one of many race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action for which policymakers should advocate.

[joemillerjd-blog]

How TV May Make Your Kids Smarter

Characters from PBS' "Super Why!"

Wasteful government spending is a legitimate problem that should be addressed, but it should not be approached with blinders on.  Many government-funded programs have been associated with positive socioeconomic outcomes.  PBS is an example. 

Research on television viewing by children can often seem conflicting and confusing to parents, educators and policymakers.  It is important, though, to distinguish between the effects of children spending too much overall time watching programming on television, computers, tablets and smartphones, and the effects of the context in which children are exposed to content.  Accordingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under age 2, and no more than 2 hours of “quality programming” for children over the age of 2, preferably with parents watching with their children.   

A robust body of research highlights some alarming statistics about the amount of video content children are exposed to. In 2005, a study published in American Behavioral Scientist found that children between the ages of 6 months and 6 years spend 2½ hours per day watching media content.  The study also found that infants are exposed to 1 to 2 hours of media content per day. Another study by Northwestern University released in 2011 reported that youth between the ages of 8 and 18 spent 8½ hours consuming media content each day, compared to a staggering 13 hours for minority children.  A recent University of North Carolina-Wilmington study further concluded that children spend an average of 4 hours per day with the television on in the background which, in turn, distracts children from play.  This excessive media usage has been tied to negative consequences in both health—namely, tobacco use, childhood obesity, and unhealthy sexual behavior—and academic achievement.  One study by the University of Virginia correlated Nickelodeon’s “Sponge Bob” with impeded academic performance.

The logical response from parents in light of these statistics would seem to be that they should ban their children from viewing all forms of media content.  Indeed, President Obama has implored us on more than one occasion to simply “turn off the tv” (see here and here). Policy makers may also view this research as a justification to point to public broadcasting as an example of wasteful government spending. These approaches, while expedient, ignore the role of content in producing outcomes the majority of Americans find favorable.  In short, these responses ignore context: the degree to which the media being consumed foster interactive, rather than passive, viewer engagement, and the extent to which such programming may actually improve circumstances when consumed in moderation and when paired with comprehensive educational strategies.

PBS broadcasts some of the strongest examples of quality programming associated with improved educational outcomes:

In 2011, PBS won 8 Parents’ Choice Awards for Television.

A recent University of Pennsylvania/PBS Kids study revealed that children who watched “Super Why!” scored 46% higher on standardized tests than those who did not.   

A Joan Ganz Cooney Center study showed that PBS Kids’ “Martha Speaks Dog Party” app improved vocabulary by up to 31% in children ages 3 to 7.

Several studies have shown PBS Kids programming to be associated with positive impacts on children overall, but especially on children from low-income backgrounds or who are at risk of reading failure, among which children of color are disproportionately represented.

Anyone who is genuinely concerned about education and concerned about racial and socio-economic achievement gaps should also be concerned about PBS’ continued viability.

[joemillerjd-blog]

Is VH1 Cannibalizing BET?

A scene from VH1's "Love & Hip Hop"

Two reports--"African-American Consumers: Still Vital, Still Growing" by Nielsen and "Basic Cable Network Segmentation Toward Minorities and Other Niche Audiences in a Digital World: Preliminary Results of an Empirical Study of Cable Advertising"  by Haizhen Lin, David Waterman, and Sung Wook Ji--shed light on the effect of  “market segmentation” on minority oriented cable network programming.  The media industry as a whole has been trending toward market segmentation for some time, as the growth of cable programming, as well as the increased capabilities of internet and digital platforms, have facilitated hyper-targeted advertising models.  This trend, however, has resulted in the cannibalization of black-oriented cable networks owned by media conglomerates that also own mass appeal cable outlets. 

During the 1970s, when the cable industry was still in its infancy, many policy makers and others lauded the potential of cable to increase minority-oriented programming: In 1973, Black Enterprise predicted that cable would be the final opportunity for minorities to acquire a stake in the media industry.  Nevertheless, according to Lin, Waterman and Ji, of the three cable networks specifically targeting African-Americans, only one--Viacom-owned BET--consistently features a high number of African-American viewers overall and delivers a large number of African-American viewers to advertisers for each advertising buy.  The other two networks--Centric (also owned by Viacom) and TV One (owned by Radio One and NBCUniversal)--have predominantly black audiences, but have not been as successful as BET at delivering a consistently high number of African-American viewers for each buy.

According to the Nielsen report "[t]he most popular programming in African-American households are those starring Black characters, sports, variety shows with diverse contestants, and award shows." As such, "American Idol Audition Special," "New Year's Rockin' Eve Part 1," The Game, Season 5," "Let it Shine" and "Whitney Houston: Her Life" were the top 5 programs most watched by African Americans age 2+, total day, between 12/26/11 and 6/24/12.  In primetime, seven of the top 10 prime time shows watched by African-Americans ages 18-49 were broadcast on either VH1 or BET.  Of those seven, only 2--"The Game, Season 5" (at number 1) and "Let's Stay Together, Season 2" (at number 6) were shown on BET:

  1.     The Game, Season 5 (BET)

2.     Love and Hip Hop, Season 2 (VH1)

3.     Basketball Wives, Season 4 (VH1)

4.     Single Ladies, Season 2 (VH1)

5.     T.I. and Tiny (VH1)

6.     Let’s Stay Together, Season 2 (BET)

7.     Whitney Houston: Her Life (CNN)

8.     La La’s Full Court Life, Season 2 (VH1)

9.     Scandal (ABC)

10. Braxton Family Values (WE: Women’s Entertainment.

"Super Bowl XLV1" was the highest rated sports show watched by African-Americans age 2+, with 12.47 million African-Americans tuning in.  Further, Lin, Waterman and Ji also report, using Nielsen data, that NBA-TV, SOAPnet, VH1, Fuse, Lifetime Movies, Nick Toons, and Oxygen Media --all mass appeal networks--rounded out the top 10 cable networks watched by African-Americans.  

These data suggest that competitive pressures from mass appeal media outlets that have successfully converted African-American viewers by offering better produced programming than BET, Centric and TV One have led Viacom's VH1 to “cannibalize” BET and Centric to keep VH1 competitive against mass appeal competitors.  “Cannibalize” is a marketing term describing the scenario in which one or more of a corporation's subsidiaries eat away at the profits of one or more of the corporation's other subsidiaries. Shows featuring Black characters have been a sweet spot for BET for some time.  Further, as described above, BET has in some cases delivered African-American viewers to advertisers as efficiently as "mass appeal" networks. But Lin, et al. also showed, not surprisingly, that African-Americans were much more likely to watch mass appeal targeted networks, than whites were to watch networks targeting African-Americans and Latinos. Lin et al. also concluded that  "[w]hile content itself appears to have significant effects on black and Hispanic audiences, production investments appears [sic] to be a substantial, common influence on all racial and ethnic groups." In other words, no viewer--irrespective of their race or ethnicity--wants to watch television shows that are poorly produced. 

Accordingly, it may be argued that Viacom is incentivized to: 1) place the most popular shows featuring African-American characters on VH1, rather than BET and Centric, ostensibly to garner a more racially and ethnically diverse audience in prime time, and; 2) disproportionately allocate production resources toward its mass appeal networks.

In addition to studying the consequences of having an increasingly mass appeal cultural frame shaping our perceptions, policy makers should consider the communications policy implications of cannibalization.  Specifically, cannibalization seems to be a symptom of excessive concentration of media ownership.  The FCC should investigate the extent to which the shifting of production resources away from minority-oriented networks toward mass appeal networks is a problem that disproportionately harms potential owners, minority audiences, and employees, such as advertising salespeople, whose compensation is tied to the profitability of cannibalized networks.  The effect of cannibalization on employee performance would be especially enlightening if the assumption that a higher proportion of people of color work at cannibalized networks is proven correct.

[joemillerjd-blog]

On "The New Jim Crow"

I finally got around to reading Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” and am kicking myself for taking so long to pick it up. It is an absolute must read.

The book’s premise is that mass incarceration (including persons on probation or being monitored) is a gateway to the same disparities we have always seen in employment, housing, education and voting that have been relentlessly pursued by some conservatives since the nation’s inception. Ms. Alexander discusses race as a wedge issue created by wealthy, 18th century politicians to address a generalized frustration by poor people of all races: by granting poor whites a slight advantage, elites were able to persuade poor whites to vote for policies designed to preserve wealth at the top of the socioeconomic ladder. This appeal has been refined over time as Emancipation, Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement brought about changes to end de jure discrimination.

Mass incarceration is a further upgrade of this system. The difficulty of mass incarceration is that it is legitimated by rhetoric around having a colorblind society: unlike slavery, whites go to prison as well; the “War on Drugs” should target minority neighborhoods because minorities commit more crimes (even though statistics have shown that Blacks and Latinos are no more likely to sell drugs than their white, suburban counterparts), and; examples of black exceptionalism, such as the presidency of Barack Obama, which are used to create the perception that racial disparities no longer exist. These and other examples of colorblind rhetoric mask some startling statistics. Among them:

At 743 per 100,000 population, the United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world, with Russia coming in second at 577 per 100,000, and Rwanda at #3 at 561 per 100,000. England and Wales have an incarceration rate of 155 per 100,000.

70% of American prisoners are non-white.

1 in 11 African Americans are incarcerated.

1 in 27 Latinos are incarcerated.

Meanwhile, just 1 in 45 Whites is incarcerated.

In 2011, 84% of stop and frisks in New York City were performed on Blacks or Latinos, even though they comprised only 23% and 29% pf the population, respectively.

Contraband was found in only 2% of those stops.

A 2012 Wayne State Study estimates 5,000 wrongful convictions per year assuming a .5% wrongful conviction rate.

Once one enters the criminal justice system, place does indeed matter in terms of where people are able to find jobs, where they are able to live and vote, whether they will be able to find healthcare, and what skills they bring to the workforce once they are out of prison. This new age requires us to take criminal justice reform out of a silo, and start incorporating criminal justice reform into many more policy discussions. For example, in the context of media and technology, take the example of a person who is wrongfully convicted who goes to prison for 10 years, does not have access to broadband, the internet or digital literacy training the entire time he or she is there, and when they come out and try to find work, they can’t. The Internet is not a “great equalizer” for this person.

Policymakers working in seemingly unrelated areas should shed more light on how this new system of racial control affects disparities in all policy areas.

[joemillerjd-blog]

"Revolution" Pilot-- A Racial Rundown

"Revolution" premiered last night on NBC. Here is a rundown of all the scenes that depict blacks and African-Americans, along with the corresponding archetypes. Time posts correspond with Hulu:

*Spoiler Alert*

The show is set in a post-apocalyptic Chicago.

At 4:03: Aaron Pittman, as played by Zak Orth, teaches 3 poor white children and one poor black child about "the blackout." [white savior archetype]

7:46: Warning his daughter Charlie about hunting safety, Ben Matheson, as played by Tim Guinee, foreshadows the lynching reference at 11:54, below.

9:20: Maggie, a medical doctor, as played by Anna Lise Phillips shows black child who is sitting on her lap how to identify herbs.  [white savior archetype]

9:30 [cue suspenseful music]: Captain Tom Neville, as played by Giancarlo Esposito, vaguely resembling prominent Chicago resident Barack Obama, rides in on a horse with men of various races carrying crossbows, knives and other weapons and everyone in town is frightened. [evil/angry/threatening archetype]

9:41: One adult townsperson is black and he is defensively carrying a pitchfork along with a white man with a long beard who is also carrying a pitchfork.

9:47: Ben gives a mysterious necklace to Aaron and urges him to protect it at all costs.

10:47: Neville tells Ben that he is going to have to "come with us."  When Ben objects, Neville threatens to "conscript" all of Ben's children and "re-educate them until they no longer remember [their] names." [evil/angry/threatening archetype] 

11:54: Ben Matheson's son (Danny Matheson as played by Graham Rogers) pulls a crossbow on Neville, which leads another townsman to pull a shotgun.  Neville responds saying that "owning a firearm is a hanging offense," to which the townsman replies, "So go hang yourself." [lynching reference]

12:24: One of Neville's men shoots Ben Matheson, which leads to a fight.  The fight ends when Neville pulls out a gun and shoots more people than anyone else saying, "Enough." [evil/angry/threatening archetype]

16:25: We see that Neville and his men have captured Danny Matheson.  Neville tells Danny that when General Monroe finds out that Ben Matheson is dead, Monroe will be irate and might even have Neville's head.  Danny, who is handcuffed to a wagon says, "Let's hope" and Neville slaps him across the face. [evil/angry/threatening archetype]

27:30: Danny, who has escaped Neville's camp has found shelter in a house.  He awakens to an African-American woman (Grace as played by Maria Howell) pointing a shotgun at his face. Danny suffers from asthma and she gives him an inhaler.  She is concerned about whether "Monroe's boys" followed him there. When he convinces her that he is not threatening, she puts the gun down and breathes a sigh of compassion. [caregiver archetype]

33:12: Neville shows up at Grace's home. She denies that Danny is there, but Neville has found tracks leading into the house.  She acquiesces and lets him in.  Neville charges up the stairs with his weapon drawn and bursts into the room in which Danny is sleeping, apprehending him as he is trying to escape. [evil/angry/threatening archetype]

41:58: Grace unlocks a secret room in her house.  We discover that the room is something of a command center and that Grace has an identical necklace to the one Ben gave Aaron. She communicates with an unknown person and informs them that Neville was there but that they did not find the necklace. [positive depiction]