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U.S. black newspaper coverage of the UN and U.S. white coverage, 1948–1975

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Keith S. Petersen
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Political Science, North Carolina State University at Raleigh.
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Abstract

An analysis of UN coverage in sample years between 1948 and 1975 by five representative black U.S. newspapers as compared with the New York Times and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Tribune shows that UN coverage by the black press since 1961 has declined, as it has for the white press, but that the decline in black press coverage is not only less sharp but has also been somewhat reversed in recent years. Patterns of coverage differ: greater priority is accorded in the black press to Africa and Asia and more emphasis is placed on personalities, especially on black Americans at the United Nations. Comparisons of black press coverage with UN “busyness” and with the differentials of support for the UN that have been manifested over the years in both black and white public opinion reveal no clear correlations.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1979

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References

The manuscript from which this paper derives was substantially revised in keeping, first, with extensive suggestions which were made by Alfred O. Hero, Jr., and thereafter with a further redraft prepared by the staff of International Organization. The author is pleased to acknowledge their considerable contributions.

1 See Hero, Alfred O. Jr, American Religious Groups View Foreign Policy: Trends in Rank and File Opinion, 1937–1969 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1973), pp. 83110, 365–419Google Scholar; Hero, , “American Negroes and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1937–1967,” Journal of Conflict Resolution XIII:2 (06 1969): 220251CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Laudicina, Paul A., World Poverty and Development: A Survey of American Opinion (Washington, D.C.: Overseas Development Council, 1973), pp. 7879Google Scholar.

2 See for example Scott, William A. and Withey, Stephen B., The United States and the United Nations: The Public View, 1945–1955 (N.Y.: Manhattan Publishing Co., 1958)Google Scholar; Hero, Alfred O. Jr, “The American Public and the UN, 1954–1966,” Journal of Conflict Resolution X:4 (12 1966): 436475CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sills, Joe Byrne, “Fever Chart of the UN: What the U.S. Polls Show,” Worldview 19:10 (10 1976): 912Google Scholar; and Riggs, Robert E., “The United States and Diffusion of Power in the Security Council,” International Studies Quarterly 22, 4 (12 1978): 513544CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 The broadest study is Szalai, Alexander et al. , The United Nations and the News Media (United Nations: UNITAR, 1972)Google Scholar; it compares UN coverage by both the printed media and TV and radio in several “advanced” and “developing” countries, but only for three “strategically chosen” two-week periods in 1968. See also: Soroos, Carol Stern, “The United Nations and the World Press: A Study of Concern, Awareness, Support and Perceptions of United Nations Effectiveness,” Ph.D. dissertation: Northwestern University, 1975Google Scholar. Other studies have focused on single outlets, brief periods, or particular functions. See: Ash, Philip, “The United Nations and the Periodical Press,” Journal of Social Psychology 32:2 (11 1950): 191205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frye, William R., “Press Coverage of the UN,” International Organization 10:2 (05 1956): 276281CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rubin, Ronald, “The UN Correspondent,” Western Political Quarterly XVII:4 (12 1964): 615631Google Scholar; and Petersen, Keith S., “Analysis of Declining Coverage of U.N. by New York Times,” Journalism Quarterly XVII:3 (Autumn 1976): 544548CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Hero, Alfred O. Jr, The Southerner in World Affairs (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), 513514Google Scholar, devotes limited attention to the content of the Southern black press in the early 1960s.

5 Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 915Google Scholar.

6 According to the 1976 Dictionary of Newspapers and Periodicals (Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer & Sons, 1976)Google Scholar, the U.S. black paper with the largest recorded circulation was the New York Amsterdam News with a circulation of 68,335. The black paper with the largest circulation in 1947 was the Pittsburgh, Courier with 286, 686Google Scholar. Wolsley, Roland E., The Black Press, USA (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1971), table 4:l, p. 56Google Scholar.

7 Wolsley, , The Black Press, USA, p. 87Google Scholar, quoting L. F. Palmer, Jr.

8 The indicated characterizations of these black papers are from Wolsley, The Black Press, USA, passim. There have never been any reliable circulation figures for Muhammad Speaks, but Wolsley notes (p. 80) that in its heyday it had “shot to the lead in circulation over all other black papers” and he credits it with a claimed circulation of 600,000.

9 Petersen, “Declining Coverage.”

10 Muhammad Speaks was not always published as a weekly.

11 Although this question, with one minor exception, was the same across the years, replies were not always grouped and tabulated in the same way. Responses in the earliest poll (9–49, “What is your opinion of the UN?”) were categorized as “general approval,” “qualified approval,” “disapproval” and “no opinion”; in August 1953 the choices were “good,” “fair,” “poor” and “no opinion.” The figures that I took for correlational use were for “good” alone or for “good” (or “general approval”) combined with “fair” (or “qualified approval”). Where there were two polls in one year (1953, 1975) these positive responses were averaged.

12 Most of these survey data are taken from The Gallup Poll, Public Opinion, 1935–1971 (N.Y.: Random House, 1972)Google Scholar, 3 volumes, or from the serial Gallup Poll Index, 1965 to date. One result (of the November 1953 “what-kind-of-a-job” poll) is from Scott, and Withey, , The United States and the United Nations: The Public View, 271Google Scholar. Opinion breakdowns by race before 1970 are from Hero, , American Religious Groups View Foreign Policy, Table 6–8, pp. 402404Google Scholar; breakdowns by race since 1970 are from the Gallup Poll Index itself or from Mr. Hero personally, to whom I wish to express my gratitude.

13 Identifications of these categories and details of subheadings within them were displayed in Table I of a paper entitled “Changing Images of the U.N. in U.S. Black Newspapers vs. White” which I presented at the 1977 convention of the International Studies Association; copies of a revised version of this table are available on request.

14 Copies of a table which shows the top three UN stories (with sub-stories), by percents, in sampled newspapers for the years surveyed are available on request from the author. An earlier version of this table appeared in my “Changing Images of the U.N. in U.S. Black Newspapers vs. White” (1977), cited.

15 This term refers to years of coverage in either the Courier and the Afro-American taken together or all black papers sampled in a given year.

16 In 1965, for example, five of the twenty-four UN articles in the Afro-American dealt with James Nabrit, a prominent black who had been named to the U.S. delegation; on 25 September it also reported on another black who had joined him: “Judge Lawson Becomes 2nd on UN Delegation.”

17 Frazier, E. Franklin, Black Bourgeoisie (N.Y.: Collier Paperback, 1962), chapter 8, “The Negro Press and Wish Fulfillment,” pp. 146161Google Scholar.

18 Originally this searching out of sources ignored by both the other black and the two white papers would seem to have been the work of a very competent and widely travelled reporter, Charles P. Howard, Jr., but it was ably continued by Joe Walker and others after Howard's death in 1969.

19 American public estimates of the UN, by a variety of measurements, were relatively modest in the initial years of the organization's existence. Polls did not reveal even a consistent plurality, let alone a majority, expressing “satisfaction” with its performance until the spring of 1949. Scott, and Withey, , The United States and the United Nations: The Public View, Appendix, Chapter 4, Figure 1, pp. 270271Google Scholar.

21 Hero, , “American Negroes and U.S. Foreign Policy”: 228Google Scholar; Hero, , The Southerner and World Affairs, 506535Google Scholar.

22 Sills, “Fever Chart of the UN,” argues to the contrary but on the basis of significantly more limited evidence than is presented here.

23 It may not be. See Hill, Gary A. and Fenn, Peter H., “Comparing Event Flows—The New York Times and The Times of London: Conceptual Issues and Case Studies,” International Interactions 1, 3 (07 1974): 163186CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Brooks, Maxwell R., “Sociopolitical Attitudes of Leading Negro Newspapers,” Sociology and Social Research 41:2 (1112 1956): 100107Google Scholar, goes to considerable lengths to argue that the black press a generation ago was not pro-communist but was instead more “pro” than “anti,” as coded, on the “American Creed.”