The Associated Press is an important part of our
everyday lives. AP articles can be found in more than 1,700 newspapers across the
country, including this one. Thanks to that exposure, the AP drives the
American conversation, their reports being fodder for the talk at the dinner
table, at the water cooler, and on the radio.
With this media cooperative possessing such power
and influence -- setting the standard for news in America -- one would expect
the organization to exercise a great amount of responsibility to their
readership when distributing their reports. This is not always the case with
AP, and it was made grossly apparent in a recent article that appeared in
Sunday papers on October 28th.
The article in question was headlined in this paper
as “Poll: Racial divide in the country has grown”. It analyzed an AP poll that
looked at racial attitudes in America. Not written in a subjective or
all-inclusive manner as good reporting should be, the writers cherry-picked --
and even manipulated -- the data and the entire focus of the article was on how
allegedly prejudiced whites are against blacks. According to the report, a
majority of Americans now hold explicit anti-black attitudes. It’s a slight
majority (51%), but still an unfathomable number nonetheless. One doesn’t even
have to read the survey to know the assumption is bunkum: Think about your
white friends, family, and coworkers; do you really think that 1 out of every 2
of them despise blacks?
If you go online you can find the full survey and
its results at surveys.ap.org. The alleged disdain of blacks was determined in
the breakdown of responses under the series of questions identified as RAC11
where there were 11 traits in which the respondents are asked to rate a race on
how well that trait describes it, running the gamut from “not at all” to
“extremely well”. There are 9 positive traits (like hard-working, intelligent
at school, and good neighbors) and not one of them saw a “not at all” response
rate in excess of 3% for blacks. That
number is but a fraction of the assumed 51% of racist beliefs, so it’s obvious
that the survey analysts considered a “slightly well” or “moderately well”
response to constitute a negative belief since they weren’t in the full
positive. How is that good surveying?
There were also 2 negative traits on the survey,
violent and boastful, and the “slightly well” to “extremely well” range constituted
66% and 68% respectively. Despite such high numbers, it does not show
anti-black bias. The reason: whites were considered violent by 68% of
respondents and boastful by 77%. So, their negatives were stronger than those
of blacks. Likewise, when you look at their positive traits, they actually had
3 of them in the negative at a clip above 3% (the highest negative rate given
to any trait for blacks). Across the board on average, the numbers for whites
were no different than blacks.
There was obvious racial bias in the reporting,
because the AP article in all its length (1,182 words) said not one word about sentiments
towards whites, let alone the fact that the positives were nearly equal across
races or that the whites were held in greater disregard for their negative
traits. The entire article, and the interviews with thought leaders contained
within, painted whites as evil. Mind you, this is the same AP that in 2008 not
only gave a free pass to, but highlighted and promoted in a positive light, the
countless blacks who openly said they voted for Barack Obama on skin color
alone – openly expressed racism and racial preference that went without
identification or question.
There was also an explicit political bias in the
article as well, as a good portion of it focused on Obama, how he’ll lose votes
because of the racial feelings allegedly discovered in the survey and how,
through anecdotal mentions, he and other blacks have been the subject of racial
antagonism since he took office. It’s almost as if the writers were using
race-baiting to demean support for Mitt Romney and induce a sense of White
Man’s guilt to drive voters to Obama. Like many such Sunday exposes, the
article would have driven the political conversation for the week that followed
and with a week and a half to go to the election, it could have influenced people
on the fence with entirely incorrect information. But, it didn’t, as Hurricane
Sandy dominated the news cycle that followed.
Sadly, while the survey shows that whites and
blacks hold each other in a positive and equal light, we have a press that
drives an agenda to the contrary, in hopes of baiting races to hate one another,
divide America and, for the AP’s benefit, make good headlines.
Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.
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This column originally ran in the 05 November 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers
Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.
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This column originally ran in the 05 November 2012 Greater Niagara Newspapers
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