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The Coverage of the
Adam Alexander During the late 1960s and early 1970s, many civil rights workers were actively trying to rid Cairo, Illinois, of segregation. Blacks boycotted stores that would not employ them. Gun fights between blacks and whites were common in the black neighborhoods. The newspaper coverage of these events changed how many people looked at the issues. The newspaper's positive or negative spin however subtle, could persuade readers to view a situation from different perspectives. Three different newspapers in southern Illinois took different views of what went on in the town. The Cairo Evening Citizen, the local newspaper, was slightly pro-white. The Southern Illionoisan, an area newspaper, favored the civil rights activists in Cairo. The East St. Louis Monitor, a black-run newspaper, was strongly pro-black on racial issues in Cairo. I developed a way of determining what direction a newspaper leans in covering events. My thinking began with an unpublished paper by M. A. Havema, K. B. Ward, and C. B. Hobson, "The Effects of White Newspaper Coverage on Civil Rights Activities in A Smaller Community." One test is the very fact that a story is covered in a newspaper. For example, a pro-rights paper might publish a story about how a group of black residents filed a petition for something that might not be covered in an anti-rights paper. Another method is to see how a paper describes people or an event. A demonstration for either whites or blacks may be referred to as a "protest" or a "riot" by the newspapers. One other way of determining the preferences of the papers was to see who the reporters interviewed. Suppose people marched for black rights. A newspaper supporting the march might interview marchers or organizers of the march, emphasizing the goals of the participants. An opposing newspaper emphasizing the negative aspects of the march might interview the police force or city council members. In the three papers reviewed, most of the time, many of the signs were fairly subtle. This paper examines a few articles from each paper to demonstrate the slant given to the coverage. The newspaper that was probably the most onesided was the East St. Louis Monitor. This paper regularly published a Cairo section, much of which was written by Preston Ewing, a civil rights activist who was the president of the Cairo NAACP during this period. In many of its articles, Ewing accused and denounced the city of Cairo and supported the civil rights workers. The title of one article begins, "Cairo Police Attack Again." One of the articles reads, "The Cairo police struck again last week. They illegally raided two black business places on Sept. 29, then beat and arrested several blacks that were customers." The article mentioned beatings of several black citizens and portrayed the Cairo police as tyrannical oppressors. It concluded with, "Garrett [a victim of the police beating] had several charges made against him by the Cairo police in an obvious attempt to justify the beating given to him, but the state's attorney dropped the charges. This angered the police who want a free hand in dealing with blacks." This story displayed a strong sympathy with the blacks. It stressed the illegality of the police raid and the groundlessness of the charges against the arrested. The East St. Louis Monitor had carried another story entitled, "City Council Rejects New Housing." It began, "The Cairo City Council has struck another blow against the poor people of Cairo who are living in the worst dwellings." The article also accused the city council of oppressing blacks and the poor. In yet another story, "Cairo Loses Top Black Man," all of the page-one story focused on the loss of an important figure in the United Front, a civil rights group in Cairo, and told how Reverend Charles Koen would be missed in the fight against the injustices of the Cairo city council. In all three of these stories, it is possible to see how one might come to understand the East St. Louis Monitor as sympathetic with the civil rights activists. A reader relying exclusively on this paper for information about the situation in Cairo might conclude that lawless police and city councilmen were attempting to thwart the legitimate efforts of the black citizens to achieve equal rights. In the Cairo Evening Citizen, the local Cairo newspaper, articles and stories seem to be more pro-white than pro-black. The differences are more subtle, but remain. Several accounts refer to a group of whites trying to promote segregation as "delegates" and "citizens," along with other sympathetic terms. The paper chose to publish an editorial by a correspondent based in Washington, D.C., called, "Woes of Forgotten Whites: Growing, Ominous Rumble." In this editorial, the names by which parties are addressed becomes even more evident. It begins, "Slowly, but surely, public figures in this capital and many other great urban centers are beginning to discard the term 'backlash' as insufficient to describe the discontent of white working people in this era of the black struggle." The article continues to sympathize with white concerns and not cover black ones. The terms "white working people" and "black struggle" are repeated throughout the article. In another article of the Cairo Evening Citizen entitled, "Camelot Classes Start August 25," the paper covered a story about a school opened in order that white students would not have to go to the local, integrated school and could instead go to the privately owned, all-white school, Camelot. While Camelot was not officially closed to blacks, it had an anti-black atmosphere and was founded by one of the leaders of a white group, which had been characterized by some as a vigilante group. The article praised the school. The fact that it covered this story as a page-one story means it was probably meant to be significant for white readers. A lot can be drawn from how and if a paper covers a subject relative to blacks, whites, or both. In the examples listed above, I discerned that the paper was slightly pro-white on many issues. One article mentioned a group of Cairo whites marching to Springfield, protesting the actions of the blacks in Cairo. This protest was not covered in the other two newspapers. Readers relying primarily on this newspaper might unwittingly start sympathizing with white concerns and problems. The Southern Illinoisan, an area newspaper based in Carbondale that had a mostly white staff, covered issues in Cairo with a slightly pro-civil rights attitude. In an article, "Cairo Suit Filed," the paper described how a black girl was expelled from school for leading a choir in a song about freedom. The Southern Illinoisan was very sympathetic with the black girl in this article. It also frequently interviewed Preston Ewing, Jr., a leader in the Cairo NAACP. Considering the people it interviewed and the way it expressed the girl's story, the paper appeared sympathetic with black problems. Another story, "Carbondale Learns What School Busing is Like," discussed the newly integrated schools of Carbondale. It put a positive spin on the schools, interviewing optimistic teachers and students and praising the integration of black and white students. While this is not directly related to Cairo, it shows that the Southern Illinoisan did not favor segregation. One article in the Southern Illinoisan accused the police of Cairo. The story, "Cairo Police Arrest Eighteen During March" described how NAACP 2 ILLINOIS HISTORY / DECEMBER 2001 leaders were arrested for a public demonstration. Many black leaders in the NAACP were interviewed, but Cairo police were not. It claimed that the march was planned two days in advance, the city knew about it, approved it, and then arrested marchers for obstructing roads. The Southern Illinoisan makes it seem like the city tricked the marchers and went back on its word by telling how the city still arrested the marchers even though the march was legally scheduled. All these stories seem to indicate that the Southern Illinoisan was in favor of the blacks of Cairo. A reader subscribing to this paper might be more sympathetic with the black citizens' side on Cairo issues from the way the articles were written. A comparison of these three papers and their articles on events in Cairo can help explain what the writers thought of certain situations. The Southern Illinoisan could probably be classified as slightly pro-black. The Cairo Evening Citizen, however, would likely be considered slightly pro-white. Although its views are rarely overt, little attention is given to the grievances of the black demonstrators, and substantial attention is given to white groups opposing the demonstrators. In the East St. Louis Monitor, it is fairly evident that the paper strongly supported the African Americans of Cairo. This support is more direct than in the Southern Illinoisan, where direct negative characterizations of whites were infrequent but where spokesmen for blacks were often quoted. The differences in these papers range from subtle to fairly obvious in terms of favoring sides. A newspaper is supposed to remain neutral, but in cases like these where there are "hot issues" being discussed, it sometimes becomes hard for a writer to suppress his own opinion. Further, choice of language, choice of coverage, and choice of interviews unavoidably color the coverage of the issue. What the reader reads often affects his or her views of issues. Thus the way the stories were portrayed were actually of great significance in these situations. Illinois was divided during this time of civil rights activity, and die newspapers give us a view of different aspects of each side.—[From Cairo Evening Citizen, Oct. 7, 1969, Aug. 14, 1970; East St. Louis Monitor, May 13, July 1, Oct. 7, 1971; P. Ewing, Jr. and J. P. Roddy, Let My People. Go; P. Good, Cairo, Illinois; M. A. Haveman, K. B. Ward, and C. B. Hobson, "The Effects of White Newspaper Coverage on Civil Rights Activities in a Smaller Community," Southern Illinoisan, Oct. 15, 1969.] ILLINOIS HISTORY / DECEMBER 2001 3 |
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