Media 2070 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 82
joined forces with Color Of Change. Ultraviolet sent a
letter to 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch signed
by more than 500 survivors of sexual assault calling
for O’Reilly’s firing. The pressure from all of these
organizations led to his firing.5
Efforts like these are crucial: The dehumanization of Black
people in the media has long fueled violence against Black
community and those who fight for racial justice. This
violence has also directly impacted members of the Black
press, who have played an indispensable and dissident
role in keeping the Black community informed about the
ongoing struggle for civil and human rights.
harm the Black community. And Black activists are using
the internet to challenge these narratives and to advocate
for the health and well being of their communities in the
struggle for media justice.
•••
1. William Barlow, Voice Over: The Making of Black Radio, Temple University Press, 1998, pp. 40–44; Juan
González and Joseph Torres, News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media, Verso,
2011, pp. 250–254
2. Ibid
3. Tarso Luís Ramos, “Basta Dobbs!: An Interview with Roberto Lovato,” Political Research Associates,
Aug. 1, 2010: https://www.politicalresearch.org/2010/08/01/basta-dobbs-interview-roberto-lovato; Brian
Stelter and Bill Carter, “Lou Dobbs Abruptly Quits CNN,” The New York Times, Nov. 12, 2009: https://www.
nytimes.com/2009/11/12/business/media/12dobbs.html
4. “Ad Boycott Costs Glenn Beck Over 50% of Ad Dollars,” Color Of Change, accessed on Sept. 20, 2020:
https://colorofchange.org/press_release/ad-boycott-costs-glenn-beck-over-50-of-ad-dollars/
“The critical role of the black press in the
civil rights movement has not received
the attention it deserves,” writes Dorothy
Butler Gilliam, who worked at a Black
newspaper — Memphis’ Tri-State Defender
— after graduating from college in 1957.
“Black journalists put themselves on the
front lines of these stories before and
during the civil rights movement, doing the
work and putting their bodies in danger
so the sacrifices of activists would not go
unnoticed.”6
5. Cynthia Littleton, “Inside Color Of Change’s Successful Campaign to Make Bill O’Reilly’s Advertisers
Flee,” Variety, April 19, 2017: https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/bill-oreilly-fired-campaign-advertiserdeflections-color-of-change-1202390705/; “Bill O’Reilly Is Done,” Color Of Change petition, accessed on
Sept. 3, 2020: https://act.colorofchange.org/signup/bill-oreilly-bye/; David Folkenflik, “Glenn Beck’s Show
on Fox News to End,” NPR, April 6, 2011: https://www.npr.org/2011/04/06/135181398/glenn-beck-toleave-daily-fox-news-show; Anjuli Sastry and Karen Grigsby Bates, “When LA Erupted In Anger: A Look
Back at the Rodney King Riots,” NPR, April 26, 2017: https://www.npr.org/2017/04/26/524744989/whenla-erupted-in-anger-a-look-back-at-the-rodney-king-riot; Ultraviolet's overview of campaign urging Fox
News to fire O’Reilly, accessed on Sept. 3, 2020: https://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/oreilly_victory/#
6. Dorothy Butler Gilliam, “The Critical Role of the Black Press in the Civil Rights Movement Has Not
Received the Attention It Deserves,” NBC News, March 24, 2018: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/
opinion/critical-role-black-press-civil-rights-movement-has-not-received-ncna859701; Nia Decaille,
“Dorothy Gilliam Confronted Racism and Sexism as the First Black Female Reporter at The Washington
Post,” The Washington Post, March 7, 2019: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/08/
double-handicap-dorothy-gilliam-being-first-black-female-reporter-washington-post/; Natasha S. Alford,
“Taxi Cabs Wouldn’t Pick Her Up in the 1960s. She Became an Award-Winning Journalist Anyway,” The
Grio, Feb. 1, 2019: https://thegrio.com/2019/02/01/5-things-to-know-about-trailblazing-black-journalistdorothy-butler-gilliam/
7. Ibid Butler Gilliam
8. Nia Decaille, “Dorothy Gilliam Confronted Racism and Sexism as the First Black Female Reporter
at The Washington Post,” The Washington Post, March 7, 2019: https://www.washingtonpost.com/
One of those journalists was L. Alex Wilson, the editor
of the Tri-State Defender, who traveled to Little Rock,
Arkansas, in 1957 along with other Black journalists to
cover the integration of Central High School by nine Black
students.7 A white mob savagely beat Wilson — hitting
him in the head with a brick — in an attack that television
cameras captured.8 In 1959, Wilson developed a “nervous
alignment,” and a year later, he died of Parkinson’s disease.
He was just 51 years old. His wife and friends believed
he developed Parkinson’s as a result of the injuries he
suffered in Little Rock.9
nation/2019/03/08/double-handicap-dorothy-gilliam-being-first-black-female-reporter-washington-post/
9. Hank Klibanoff, “L. Alex Wilson: A Reporter Who Refused to Run,” Media Studies Journal, Vol.14,
No. 2, Spring/Summer 2000: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/455.html; Will Haygood, “Story
of Their Lives for Reporters on the Civil Rights Beat, The Trick Was to Cover The News, Not Be It,” The
Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2006: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2006/11/26/story-oftheir-lives-span-classbankheadfor-reporters-on-the-civil-rights-beat-the-trick-was-to-cover-the-news-notbe-itspan/7d408efe-ffca-40c8-a3b9-baa3746a1f33/
Today, Black journalists are using their platforms to
disrupt racist and stereotypical media narratives that
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