A Non-Violent Protest: Turn Off The TV

There is an old axiom on the local evening television newscasts that goes,”If it bleeds, it leads.” For minorities, this can be devastating.

Of course, living way out here in South Dakota, I cannot speak for the inner cities of America, but I have attended enough national journalism conferences and seminars to know that African-Americans and Hispanics feel they are being singled out and portrayed as the bad guys on the nightly news.

The situation is as bad, or worse, in Indian country. Because major crimes committed on Indian reservations - crimes such as rape, murder and armed robbery - cannot be tried in tribal court, the jurisdiction for trial goes to a federal, or, in some cases, a state court.

Federal and state courts are located off Indian reservations. In South Dakota, this means major crimes committed on Indian reservations are tried in Rapid City. Considering there are six reservations west of the Missouri River in South Dakota with a total population of nearly 50,000 Lakota and Dakota Indians, the instances of Indians being tried in Rapid City are numerous.

The local evening news reporters do not make this distinction clear for their viewers. Therefore, it appears that Indians living in Rapid City are committing a disproportionate number of crimes.

When the local daily newspaper does its weekly summation of court cases being tried in Rapid City, once again, it appears that the Indian population of this fair city is rife with criminals.

I have reached the point in life that I can hardly stomach the evening news because I know the top three stories both local channels will lead with will have to do with Indians committing crimes. It happens almost every night.

A study at UCLA by Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., showed that 50 percent of crimes committed by blacks in Los Angeles are violent crimes while 47 percent of white crimes are violent. And yet, 61 percent of the crimes stories covered by KABC involved blacks while only 36 percent were stories about crimes committed by whites.

According to an article in U.S. News and World Report last week, an examination by the Rocky Mountain Media Watch of 100 local newscasts across the nation on a single day last fall found that crime, disaster and war coverage averaged 42 percent of the air time. The record was set by WLKY of Louisville, Ky., with 88 percent.

A survey by U.S. News of local newscasts in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Greenville, N.C., during the week of Feb. 11-17 found that crime and disaster stories made up just about half of all stories reported in each place.

But don’t take the word of U.S. News or this column. Get out a note pad and follow your local newscasts for one week. Count how many stories of violent crimes and disasters lead the news each night. Is it any wonder we are all getting a little shell-shocked?

Put yourself in the shoes (moccasins) of the Indian children in South Dakota alone. If they watch the evening news at all, what do they learn from the nightly bombardment of negatives about their people?

Tribal courts are microcosms of the larger system of jurisprudence in America. At one time in our history, tribal courts were highly inadequate simply because not enough time or money was put into them to ensure that qualified people were placed into the position to be judges. That has all changed during the past 10 years. Most tribal courts are headed by judges with law degrees from respectable U.S. colleges and universities.

Some tribal courts are even exercising their traditional systems of justice as they functioned before the advent of the white man, and they are doing it with phenomenal success. Too often the white system of judging is based upon accusations that create hostility and anger between the person on trial and the victim. The tribal methods are based more upon cooperation and conciliation.

But these aren’t the kind of stories you are going to see on the local evening news. If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead.

As a matter of fact, at a time in the history of Indian reservations when more is being done on a local, reservation level to combat drug and alcohol abuse, little if any of these success stories are making the nightly news. Just the opposite is true.

I, for one, am becoming numb to the mayhem that passes for news each night. It makes one wonder where in this world there is a safe place. And yet, I would venture to say that the nightly newscasts of crime are far out of proportion to the reality of it. I believe that for every bad story there must be at least 20 good ones.

Then why in the world does the nightly news insist on leading each night with blood and guts? Are they becoming so desperate for viewers that they would pander to their worst instincts?

Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but I believe I will continue to get my news from a newspaper. At least I can skip over the stories of violent crimes and read about all of the good things happening in my community. And there are many. And the only thing that bleeds in my newspaper is the ink.

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