Race-Baiter

How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation

Eric Deggans

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781137093066
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Civil Rights in Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

Gone is the era of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, when news programs fought to gain the trust and respect of a wide spectrum of American viewers. Today, the fastest-growing news programs and media platforms are fighting hard for increasingly narrow segments of the public and playing on old prejudices and deep-rooted fears, coloring the conversation in the blogosphere and the cable news chatter to distract from the true issues at stake. Using the same tactics once used to mobilize political parties and committed voters, they send their fans coded messages and demonize opposing groups, in the process securing valuable audience share and website traffic. Race-baiter is a term born out of this tumultuous climate, coined by the conservative media to describe a person who uses racial tensions to arouse the passion and ire of a particular demographic. Even as the election of the first black president forces us all to reevaluate how we think about race, gender, culture, and class lines, some areas of modern media are working hard to push the same old buttons of conflict and division for new purposes. In Race-Baiter, veteran journalist and media critic Eric Deggans dissects the powerful ways modern media feeds fears, prejudices, and hate, while also tracing the history of the word and its consequences, intended or otherwise.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Notice
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• INTRODUCTION  Making All the Right Enemies
• 1  Fox News Channel vs. MSNBC: Downgrading All Journalism in the Race to Win a Political Fight
• 2  Information Wars: How Partisan Media Manipulate Facts to Get Your Attention
• 3  Fox News Channel’s Focus on Scary Black People Leaves Race Relations as Collateral Damage
• 4  Chasing Obama, Newt, Bachmann, and Palin: The Pitfalls of Race and Gender in Political Coverage
• 5  From Supernegroes to BBFs: Why Network TV Still Often Stars White America
• 6  How News Media Became a Haven for Middle- Aged White Guys (and a Few Women)
• 7  Hate Radio: Why Talk Radio May Not Be a Haven for Angry White Guys Much Longer
• 8  From Flavor Flav to All-American Muslim: Searching Past the Stereotypes in “Reality TV”
• 9  The Katrina Effect: How Lax Poverty Coverage Helps Politicians Demonize the Poor
• 10  Talking across Difference: Resisting Propaganda while Integrating Our Lives and Media
• Notes
• Index
• Copyright