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vienna · 09-10-18, 07:15 PM

It used to be a very common practice, almost a journalistic standard, to include the race of a person in the course of a news report; this was most common in print news, e.g., daily newspapers and wasn't really even considered unusual at all. I recall, growing up in San Francisco, how you could read about some incident and the papers would print something like "Mr. Bob Jones, Colored, was involved in an automobile accident yesterday." or "Miss Jane Wong, Oriental, had her purse snatched." Interestingly, given that SF had very large populations of Irish and Italians, I don't recall news reports of persons of those races or nationalities having their race/nationality specified or, at most, they would be lumped under the specification, "White", along with other subcategories not Asian, African_American, etc. The specification of race or ethnicity as a matter of course faded out in the early 60s as the Civil Rights movement grew in the US. I do recall one situation involving an observation by an African-American friend of mine: when the news stopped the racial specifications, he was pleased since he said if a 'Bob Jones' was in the news, it would be neutral and not possibly reflect badly on his race as whole; he then began to fume over the Black Liberationists who adopted African names instead of their birth names; as my friend said at the time "You might not know if 'Bob Jones' is Black or White, but you sure as hell have a good idea what race "M'Butu Kawami" might be..."...

BTW, some of the detail in news reportage may seem odd to some people, like the need to put a persons age in a report where it isn't relevant or giving a person's full name, middle name included; it used to seem odd to me, but several decades ago, I raised the question with an acquaintance who was a news reporter and he told me a lot of that detail is CYA by the news organizations. If they report a crime or otherwise potentially embarrassing occurrence, particularly if there is even the most remote possibility of mistaken identity, the more specific the report is the less chance some poor soul with the same name will be painted with the same brush as the suspect/offender and the lees chance the news organization will face suits for defamation, libel, etc. ...

<O>

09-10-18, 07:15 PM	#14
vienna Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Anywhere but the here & now... Posts: 7,507 Downloads: 85 Uploads: 0	It used to be a very common practice, almost a journalistic standard, to include the race of a person in the course of a news report; this was most common in print news, e.g., daily newspapers and wasn't really even considered unusual at all. I recall, growing up in San Francisco, how you could read about some incident and the papers would print something like "Mr. Bob Jones, Colored, was involved in an automobile accident yesterday." or "Miss Jane Wong, Oriental, had her purse snatched." Interestingly, given that SF had very large populations of Irish and Italians, I don't recall news reports of persons of those races or nationalities having their race/nationality specified or, at most, they would be lumped under the specification, "White", along with other subcategories not Asian, African_American, etc. The specification of race or ethnicity as a matter of course faded out in the early 60s as the Civil Rights movement grew in the US. I do recall one situation involving an observation by an African-American friend of mine: when the news stopped the racial specifications, he was pleased since he said if a 'Bob Jones' was in the news, it would be neutral and not possibly reflect badly on his race as whole; he then began to fume over the Black Liberationists who adopted African names instead of their birth names; as my friend said at the time "You might not know if 'Bob Jones' is Black or White, but you sure as hell have a good idea what race "M'Butu Kawami" might be..."... BTW, some of the detail in news reportage may seem odd to some people, like the need to put a persons age in a report where it isn't relevant or giving a person's full name, middle name included; it used to seem odd to me, but several decades ago, I raised the question with an acquaintance who was a news reporter and he told me a lot of that detail is CYA by the news organizations. If they report a crime or otherwise potentially embarrassing occurrence, particularly if there is even the most remote possibility of mistaken identity, the more specific the report is the less chance some poor soul with the same name will be painted with the same brush as the suspect/offender and the lees chance the news organization will face suits for defamation, libel, etc. ... <O> __________________ __________________________________________________ __ Last edited by vienna; 09-10-18 at 07:35 PM.