Essay On Minorities In The Media

There is no greater manipulator in the United States than the media. Ranging from radio, television, newspapers, and the internet, they reach out to the vast majority of the United States population. As a result, they shape the thoughts and opinions of many Americans. The media is a broad field that employs millions. Given the tremendous influence they have over American citizens, it only makes sense that the media should be a fair representation of the American people. However, like many other job fields, minorities are not well represented. The United States media has been largely controlled by white males since the beginning. Because of this, there was nothing to stop the prejudices and stereotypes that often occurred against minorities. While minorities were typically not welcome in the mainstream media, there was nothing stopping ethnic groups from forming their own media. As guaranteed by the United States constitution, every …show more content…
For example, minorities only make up 13% of newsroom employees. In addition, that percentage has not changed much at all over the past two decades. While the representation of minorities in the mainstream media may not be growing, the amount of minority-oriented news outlets continue to expand. Major media corporations such as NBC and ABC have helped to create news sources for different ethnic groups. For instance, ABC helped launch the TV channel Fusion, which provides news and entertainment aimed at the Latino audience. Today, with the power of the internet, people have access to more media than ever before in human history. While minorities may not be represented well enough in the mainstream media, there are plenty of other sources for people to get their news from. As a result, citizens are subject to less bias. In fact, nowadays people can get their news from other countries media with