Van Belle
Race and Media Coverage of Disasters
2
Race and New York Times Coverage of Foreign
Disasters
It would be difficult to argue that race is just another variable for analysis. Seldom
does any examination of race elicit a dispassionate response, even among academics, and
when you move outside of the purely academic arena, any discussion of its effects on politics,
economics or other social processes and phenomena always seems to become contentious.
The emotion reflects the inherently political nature race and the often extreme socio-economic
stakes at play (Cottle 2000). While it may deter some, the emotional subtext makes the
examination of racial influences on foreign disaster coverage all the more valuable. In a
general sense, the more sensitive and emotional the topic, the more important it is to invest
the effort in a careful, transparent and rigorous analysis that can contribute a foundation to the
debate. While this is clearly sufficient justification to tackle a research topic, there is already
a significant volume of quality research, both quantitative and qualitative, that address the
subject (for a summary of recent work see (Law 2002). The value of this study, and the
motivation for adding another analysis to the body of literature, lies in the use of foreign
disasters to study the effects of race on news coverage.
Disasters provide an ideal subject for an event-based analysis of coverage because
many of the factors presumed to influence coverage can be excluded or measured and
controlled for statistically. The physical and social distance between the victims of foreign
disasters and the intended audience of the news outlet also helps create some separation
between race and politics which would otherwise be difficult to achieve. Race is a socially
constructed concept and the politics inherent in the construction of racial referents and their
meaning will prevent race from ever being completely divorced form politics, but the effort to
attain some degree of separation for an analysis is still valuable, if only in the way it can
inform policy debates over race. If the evidence suggests an effect of skin colour that is
separate from direct economic or sociopolitical competition, then an emphasis on socially-
Convention