Race, Risk and Responsibility: Editorial Constraint in the Framing of Inequality

Abstract

An examination of the presentation of racially comparative risk by 49 leading dailies reveals a tendency to frame stories of difference in terms of Black loss. This framing appears deliberate, and structurally constrained. Indeed, clear examples of the demotion of leads identified by van Dijk are found in cases where headlines fail to reflect leads that emphasize the high probability of White success in the pursuit of mortgages. Structural influences, as represented by the proportion of Black Americans in the newspaper's market, were revealed in correlations suggesting that the greater the presence of Blacks in the market, the more likely the papers were to use a lead emphasizing the high probability of Black failure.