warpus
In pork I trust
So what you are saying is, this is really symptomatic of a larger problem. I.e., "the public," i.e. the media consumer, gets the coverage in more or less an accurate proportion to their amount of interest. I think that is probably accurate. I guess I wonder then how do you change public interest in what is to me part of a huuuuuuuuge and uniquely American problem (i.e. black/white race relations and racial politics in the US)?
I think, and this might be hugely unpopular to suggest (to Americans), that the U.S. really needs something like the BBC or CBC. Most avenues by which Americans get their news just suck. In terms of being news delivery mechanisms they fail big time. They oversensationalise and and do whatever it takes to get viewers. They don't care about journalism or reporting honest unbiased news. They just want $$$.
So obviously that is never going to happen, I don't think anyway.. but I think we'd have similar issues here in Canada if we didn't have the CBC and we had huge race relation issues in our country as well. Right-leaning people would turn to Fox News North or whatever, and left-leaning Canadians would turn to whatever. It would divide the country even more, since people wouldn't really be getting the news, but rather oversensationalised garbage wrapped up in whatever biases are convenient at the time. And that sort of reporting makes it easy for people to "Dig in their heels" and make it feel like there is an "us vs them" dynamic happening, but in reality that might just be a tactic the publisher is using to get more viewers. It divides the country further and instead of helping it hurts the issue by misinforming and dividing people further.
I think another related issue is that in most TV markets in the U.S. (middle class?) white families make up most of that highly sought after demographic. So even if there is no malice intended, programming is going to cater more to them than other groups.