The South and the promise of nonprofit news

Since the earliest days of the republic, White-owned, mainstream commercial news outlets in the United States have neglected to produce the kind of public service journalism that Black Americans need to effectively represent their interests in our participatory system of democracy. These outlets have fostered negative stereotypes and misimpressions about Black people and communities, failed to understand Black perspectives about racial disparities and incorporate that knowledge into news coverage, threatened violence and advocated for policies that harm Black communities, and centered the judgments of White journalists and executives in deciding whether coverage is objective. Journalists and journalism scholars often think of nonprofit news organizations as necessary correctives to the failures of commercial journalism to consistently produce public service journalism. In that sense, nonprofit news offers the promise of providing Black communities with the information they need to thrive in a democratic society—but this is only possible if nonprofit journalists are more committed to dismantling systemic racism in journalism than their commercial counterparts have been. In this dissertation, to get a sense of whether nonprofit news is fulfilling this promise, I studied commercial and nonprofit newsrooms in the Southern United States—the region of the country with the largest Black population—to compare how these outlets say they serve local Black communities with the journalism they actually produce. To do this, I interviewed commercial and nonprofit journalists and executives with four pairs of publications in Austin, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; Jackson, Mississippi; and Charlottesville, Virginia. I then compared how these outlets met the information needs of Black communities through the articles they published about racial disparities in health and economic outcomes during the coronavirus pandemic. Through semi-structured interviews, and keyword and textual analysis of nearly 900 original news articles published in September 2020, I found that the nonprofit news organizations were more proactive and creative than their commercial counterparts in their efforts to include Black journalists and communities in their newsgathering efforts. I also found that aside from one energetic and proactive news outlet—Mississippi Today—nonprofit and commercial news outlets alike tend to depict Black Americans in unidimensional terms as victims of racial disparities. While reporting on racial disparities helps to focus public attention on them, there is also value in representing Black Americans as multidimensional people who are vulnerable but also possess self-efficacy and agency to overcome obstacles and prosper in life. I conclude that a robust system of public media organizations, with independent boards of directors, dedicated sources of funding, detailed commitments to racial inclusion with accountability for progress, and strong firewalls between government, donors, sponsors, board members, and editorial staff, offers the best means of ensuring that nonprofit media lives up to its promise for Black communities.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference