2. Purpose, Data Collected For this multicultural report, I wanted to take an objective-as-possible look at race and gender representation in the St. Petersburg Times. I decided the best way to do this (with the time and space allotted) was to closely examine every photograph in the national and local sections of the SPT in four editions and let the data speak for itself in terms of representation. I started this project believing the SPT did a fair job at objective reporting the news in Tampa Bay and beyond. Data Collected Every photograph depicting a person in the “Nation and World” and “Tampa Bay” sections of the SPT print edition on 3/22, 3/23, 3/25 and 3/26 was counted. Top News Stories Ray Sansom trial, Tampa runoffs, Scott signs teacher bill, woman shot dead in home invasion, Watson trial, Libya bombing, Japanese earthquake/tsunami.
3. Methods I went through every page of the “Nation and World” and “Tampa Bay” sections of the SPT print edition on the dates previously mentioned. In these sections, I noted the amount of photographs, size of photograph, placement on the page (above or below fold) and the people shown in the photograph in terms of race and gender. The table below shows the breakdown of photographic representation in the SPT over the days I closely monitored the paper. I also categorized the story by content, including “news, crime, lifestyle,” etc. to add specificity to the data (see separate document for the data breakdown). Race identification is not a cut and dry matter. When necessary, I did research beyond the article to try to determine a person’s origin. This happened mostly with photos depicting Hispanic men and women. Photos are counted by the actual number of photos in the paper and not be the amount of people in the photo. For photos with multiple people, I categorized by race (i.e. “more than one white male” or “multiple people of different races, genders”).
12. Conclusions Even though I only collected data from four print editions of the SPT , I saw clear patterns and trends regarding photo representation. It’s important to keep in mind that as journalists, we want to give an accurate report of news in our community and beyond. We can’t decide who commits crimes, or who is seeking political office, or even the race/gender of columnists or reporters at our news outlet. To an extent, news does not create itself. And, on the other hand, consciously including photos based on race and gender is not authentic or objective—and doing so chases the “diversity” standard that public and private sector entities alike are obsessed with these days. I do think the SPT could do a better job representing race in St. Petersburg and Pinellas County by attending events that have a minority audience . Over the four days I monitored the paper, the community events/lifestyle/leisure photos were all white. This might involve reporting on events in different neighborhoods not generally included in SPT events coverage.
13. Sources Pinellas County Census: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/12/12103.html Florida Census numbers: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/12000.html St. Petersburg Times readership: http://www.tampabay.com/mediakit/sptimes_features.html Pinellas County crime statistics: http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/f6415429-152e-4fde-a392-0dac0e50f74f/Pinellas.aspx
