No Coverage: What Urban Media Has In Common With CNN And Fox

Mehka

10 years ago

Since the vicious shooting of 9 people at a bible study in Charleston, South Carolina, 7 churches have been burned. All 7 of those churches were primarily African-American. To be fair, 2 of the churches were said to have been struck by lighting. Although, those two were accidental, that still leaves 5 other African-American places of worship burned to the ground by Lord knows who.

That total jumped to 7 last night when Mount Zion AME in Greeleyville South Carolina was burned down.In 10 years, this is the second time a church had been burned, the last time was in 1995.

The crime was attributed to a local Ku Klux Klan chapter. Two people went to jail over the incident, one of them is still imprisoned to this day.You would think this would be a big story on news outlets across the country, but that hasn’t been the case.

To put this in context, black churches are burning to the ground and have received less coverage than the CVS that was burning during the Baltimore riots, or the infamous Quik Trip gas station in Ferguson, Missouri.

As another group of Black Christians begin to regroup and get their lives and their faith back in order, the outrage is slowly start to pour out from the media. Yet, most major black outlets have been as silent as our mainstream contemporaries. It dawned on me this morning as I scrolled through my Twitter timeline and spotted some people discussing the lack of coverage about the church burnings on major outlets like CNN and FOX News.

“7 churches burn and not a word from CNN or FOX?”

“They can cover a riot, but 7 churches burn and nothing #Foxnews #CNN”

The ironic thing I noticed about what I was reading was that several posts were coming from respected bloggers and journalists, who lend their voice, presence, and opinions to all major outlets that reach millions of people everyday. Yet, these events are not being covered. As they tweet their feeling towards the situation, I begin to check out their websites that some of them reported for. What I noticed that immediately bothered me was, all I seen was just music and celebrities all over the internet, not even national networks like CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC covered the church fires.

Do we as African-American bloggers and writers, need to take responsibility and cover these events that are affecting our culture and race? I say yes. Remember when Chuck D said that rap was CNN for the hood, and claimed that music and everything surrounding the culture was speaking to our world. He also was speaking to the journalists as well.

Long gone are the days when The Source covered topics like apartheid and gang violence. Today, most or our media outlets seem bent on regurgitating whatever pop culture spits out at us. But never forget that we have a voice, matter of fact, our voice is louder and has more of an impact than any mainstream network like CNN, FOX News and MSNBC. If you have a website that draws enough traffic to where you can charge an artist’s placement in the industry, then your influence can drive enough readers to your website to hear you perspective.

As I watch another church burn, I checked my email and I’m flooded with new music from artists looking to see if I can help them find a home for it. While checking out other media outlets, all I see is even more music, videos, celebrities doing outrageous things for attention.

I hope it doesn’t take someone tweeting, “Another church has burned, but I don’t hear anything from ______” to help change that.