THANKS!
P.S. Also taking sugggestions for future polls so if you have an idea please leave it in the comments section.
For more Congress Heights and River East news visit The Congress Heights Examiner website, http://www.examiner.com/x-13507-Congress-Heights-Community-Examiner
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11 Comments:
It's not that they focus only on positive or negative, it's that the media typically just does Not understand SE.
To generalize, they usually see it as a place only to be Helped, not a place that has inherent goodness. So, stories usually focus on What Needs Helping, or, What People Are Doing To Help.
Let's hear some special interest stories on small businesses, something about the positive impacts of DHS without the typical outspoken naysayers chirping in, or make a real effort to distinguish neighborhoods.
It isn't ok to lump far SE together. THREE of the four quandrants of the city are in River East. We ain't just SE.
Well said!
i don't like the way you fell into a fox news way of framing the poll from the get-go.
fair is one thing. i would say that it often isn't.
balanced is another. there often isn't balance in the news. trying to artificially add "balance" to the news is just adding bias based on the beliefs of the news-gathering and reporting agency.
let's use a rough example. say a news story says the sky is blue. to "balance" that "viewpoint," we bring in someone who says the sky is purple. is that really "balance"? heck no. sometimes, there just a fact, and that's that. you can't "balance" it out by bring in another opinion, especially if that opinion is demonstrably false.
the cable news networks are great at using this fallacy. they always have a "left" and "right" person on their interview shows, even if there really is no need for two "sides" to a story. sometimes there just isn't anything more than the truth.
is media coverage of southeast fair? probably not always.
is media coverage of southeast balanced? only if you want to shape the facts to conform with your opinions.
(that's just my personal rant)
I did give it a 2nd thought before I framed the question "fair and balanced" but that was generally because I don't like Fox News lol but honestly I think it's a fair question. When I talk to fellow residents and we discuss media coverage of Southeast/East of the River/Ward 8 there is a real concern about the media coverage being balanced. It seems to many of us who live in these communities that most of the coverage focuses on crime. It's hard to get the mainstream media coverage to come out and cover positive things that happen in the community. In many ways we are still struggling with the basics, just getting our neighborhoods identified properly (Anacosita is not the name of Ward 8).
Typo (as always) it's ANACOSTIA although Anacosita has a nice ring to it lol.
Something else I think has contributed to the way that news has been traditional reported "East of the River" is that many of the news reporters themselves were not familiar with the area. I think there have been historicaly very few "mainstream" reporters who actaully lived East of the River and were reporting on things East of the River (hence everything east of the river being called "southeast"). Therefore it was easier to get story ideas from MPD crime stats, incidents of crime/scandal or non profit press releases. I think that is why overall we generally see the same types of stories about "southeast" because for the most part most local media outlets don't know how to get diverse River East story ideas or perspectives or perhaps they do know but don't think it would make a "newsworthy" story. I think that if the local media got more involved in the area they would have a variety of stories to report and would be able to report them accuratly.DG-rad's comment hit the nail on the head, I don't think most local media outlets understand River East so they don't know how to report it. I think until the recent explosion of River East blogs that many people especially local news reporters didn't really know what was going on or who to reach out to get a different perspective or an opinion. Good news is that I think that is changing. We see it in the recent media coverage about issues in River East or River East neighborhoods that had their start on a River East blog. As a blogger I get a lot (and I mean a lot) of emails from reporters (local and afar) who get story ideas from things they read on the blogs.
i mean, i don't want to be a downer, but we have the same problem in trinidad. usually bad news. of course, the thing is that there isn't anything much else to report about the neighborhood otherwise. it's almost exclusively residential.
it's kind of the problem that wards 7 and 8 have as well. while it's certainly not just residential on your side of the river, the fact is that you don't have a TON of places people go to (restaurants, museums, etc.) like they have in the northwest quadrant of the city. yes, more and more fun, interesting, new things are coming to your neck of the woods all of the time, but the fact is, if you're going to talk about what bar to go to, what restaurant to eat at, what fun place to shop, ward 2 is going to kick the rest of our asses day in and day out.
that's not to say that we shouldn't push to get positive stories about our wards out there—we absolutely should. but we shouldn't be surprised if the news outlets just don't see a lot of the good stuff that we see in our neighborhoods as inherently newsworthy. that's why us bloggers are out there—to fill in those gaps...
I hear where you are coming from but I think there are plenty of things...positive and non crime related things to cover in River East. I know because I write about them here every day. I think there are plenty of stories that are already here that just haven't been told. We don't have to wait for DHS or more restaurants or even a movie theater to come into the neighborhood to have a story to tell. Considering how very little is actaully known about the River East community (like basic neighborhoods) I think we have plenty to talk about.
that's basically what i just said.
I think what is happening is that we are finally writing our own story (even new residents like me)and we are holding those accountable that generally report the same story over and over and over again that there are things to talk about in our communities that have generally been "written off". Not to say that bad things such as crime aren't a part of our reality but they arent the ONLY part of our reality. I agree with you 100% I think bloggers have really stepped in and filled a void in media coverage of our communities. I get so excited when someone new starts blogging about their community.
I would like to see more native River East bloggers. I think they would have a unique perspective that someone such as myself who is new wouldn't have.
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