African American media demands comprehensive post-coronavirus reform
Black press has exposed the extent of institutionalized health inequality, but will anything change?
By Odette Alcazaren-Keeley
In mid-April, initial demographic data including from the CDC pointed to disproportionate impacts of the coronavirus pandemic among communities of color in the United States.
Now a new study of California coronavirus patients published on May 21 in the journal Health Affairs, adds to a growing body of evidence that ethnic and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups are bearing a disproportionate burden of illness and death from the disease.
The Sutter Health analysis of 1,052 COVID-19 cases from January 1–April 8, 2020 found that African Americans had 2.7 times the odds of hospitalization, when compared to non-Hispanic white patients.
Mainstream media headlines eventually acknowledged the disparate impacts of the pandemic on different racial groups, but for ethnic media journalists, this is not news. Deep disparities in health, healthcare and insurance access, nutrition, housing, jobs, wages, and education, are long-standing lived experiences amongst their diverse audiences.
Many believe these systemic inequities have made populations of color particularly vulnerable to COVID-19’s devastation. It’s all too familiar — the pandemic is the latest cataclysmic event that has exposed these divides.
Ethnic media’s critical role as a trusted source of news and information for diverse communities continues to evolve. Its voice is even more crucial in chronicling the COVID-19 crisis for audiences of color, and holding institutions accountable in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The coverage of diverse populations through the ethnic media that serve them, cuts across the Maynard Institute’s diversity framework of the six Fault Lines of race, class, geography, gender, generation and sexual orientation, as well as the fissures of religion, ability and politics. This inclusive coverage practice contributes to the trust in ethnic media by their audiences.
In this piece, the coverage from two African-American media outlets are highlighted. These journalists are alumni from the institute’s Maynard 200 journalism fellowship program last year.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN MEDIA VOICES
Kevin McNeir is editor of The Washington Informer, a multi-media news organization serving the African-American community in metropolitan Washington D.C. He has been directing his team to cover the various aspects of the coronavirus pandemic, especially with regard to the impacts on their readers and broader community.
This includes tracking the cases affecting African Americans in the nation’s capital. In their early coverage of the pandemic, the story “COVID-19 Cases Surging Among Blacks — But Why?” explored how the outbreak once more laid bare institutional disparities severely impacting this population. The article cited infections disproportionately rising among blacks in New York as the epicenter, and also in the Midwest, including Wayne County, Michigan (the county which includes Detroit) and Cook County, Illinois (the county which includes Chicago). McNeir and Wright confirmed this surge is occurring not only in the Midwest including Milwaukee also, but in southern cities that have significant Black populations including Washington, D.C, Durham and Charlotte, North Carolina as well. McNeir and Wright stress what has been starkly spotlighted by the crisis: “African Americans represent a sizable share of COVID-19 cases and deaths despite being just a fraction of the total population.”
Dr. Angela Emmons Brule, an emergency physician in the District of Columbia, cites several reasons that serve as a potential explanation for the rising number of coronavirus cases among African Americans including “lack of access to basic necessities such as insurance.”
Emmons Brule explains, “In the black population, a tremendous amount of chronic illness and premorbidities place them at high risk to not only be infected by COVID-19 but also to die from it…It’s particularly alarming for African Americans who collectively suffer from these ailments at a much higher percentage than any other ethnic group.
“There are also environmental and socio-economic factors that factor into the alarming data. In the District, like many other urban communities that have seen a steady uptick of COVID-19 cases, stay-at-home orders have been issued for residents to mitigate the spread of the virus. However, these orders don’t extend to grocery or gas station workers, public transportation, sanitation, restaurants, stores like Walmart and Target or first responders all deemed as essential.”
This is reflected in a more recent story in the paper’s national coverage. Published on May 12 from Ethnic Media Services contributing editor Khalil Abdullah, ‘Implicit Bias a Driver of COVID-19 Among African-Americans’ cites Dr. Melva Thompson-Robinson, director of the Center for Health Disparities Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as saying, “I am concerned that racism and unconscious bias continue to act as an accelerant of the pandemic, especially among African Americans and other ethnic communities.” Dr. Robinson recently spoke at a videoconference panel organized by Ethnic Media Services, and she shares that stories are emerging about African Americans going to emergency rooms with COVID-19 symptoms and not being seen.
In McNeir’s view, it is vital to cross the Fault Line of generation and look at this crisis beyond his age group, in order to protect younger people from the health disparities made obvious by this pandemic. “I’ve been writing stories and featuring perspectives that can help ensure that my grandsons will be able to live in a world where they have choices, freedom and health. That’s what I tell my reporters as well.”
“I’ve been writing stories and featuring perspectives that can help ensure that my grandsons will be able to live in a world where they have choices, freedom and health. That’s what I tell my reporters as well.”
The Informer is covering all key impacts of the outbreak, but McNeir shares that he also wants to focus on helping his audience manage their lives better, especially while living through social isolation. He wants to help people make it; to stay afloat emotionally, financially, physically and spiritually. To not just survive but thrive, he said.
This prompted McNeir to start a weekly column in late March, “Coronavirus updates: Strategies to survive, sustain and succeed.”
He shares key updates and public health recommendations, such as practical tips and resources for nutrition, hygiene and information about masks. He also includes business resources to help local restaurants struggling with the economic shutdown, and shares volunteer opportunities
For McNeir, what’s important is to see the reality of what’s in front of us, in order to manage our life creatively, effectively, and in a more integrated way. He wants to continue asking questions, “What is everybody doing? Since we can no longer have dinners and gatherings, who’s cooking? What do you do when you have always depended on your Mama’s house or grandma’s house for dinners and meals?”
Another aspect McNeir looks at is, “What matters most to black folks. One of those things is when our people die, we get together, get a pastor. No one’s talking about that and all these deaths…about what it means if you can’t have 10 people there. I assigned this to a writer when I found out cremations were up. Black folks don’t do cremations. That’s something we don’t believe in as a community. Individually maybe, but not as a community.”
The published article discussed how funeral homes in D.C. were adjusting to the changing demands, and the predicament of one black family that attempted to organize a traditional burial.
McNeir reaches across the ‘fissure’ of ability, and emphasizes the importance of covering vulnerable groups, such as seniors and people with disabilities. He also assigned reporters to investigate the noticeable dearth of hospital resources in black D.C. neighborhoods, which have a particular impact on members of his community who are disabled, uninsured or those with preexisting conditions. They are answering questions that reach across the Fault Line of gender like, ‘Where can a woman deliver during the pandemic?’
Penda Howell of the New York Amsterdam News is calling out the disparity in access to testing for the coronavirus, especially among marginalized communities. His view is reflected in the paper’s recent story: “Why are African Americans disproportionately affected by COVID-19?”
Howell is Vice President for Sales, Advertising, Partnerships at the newspaper, which considers itself “The New Black View,” and it serves an increasingly multi-racial and multi-ethnic community in New York and beyond. Like McNeir, Howell is a 2019 Maynard 200 fellow.
Howell says this current outbreak and its impacts continue to expose that divide because one of the first things he says they started seeing is that, “Folks who have A-1 healthcare are being tested almost immediately. Other communities were being discouraged from being tested, unless they had symptoms that lined up with being infected with the disease. That’s one of the things that traditionally underscores that undercurrent of mistrust with the medical community, and it’s a larger conversation that’s so important to have.”
Howell recounts that as they started covering the story in New York, “One of the first aspects we focused on is how would we in marginalized communities, be in a position not only to report on how folks can protect themselves, but for those who are less fortunate, advise them…to have the opportunity to get proper medical care?”
The New York Amsterdam News team anticipated the grave ramifications on urban or marginalized communities without access to healthcare and made it a priority to spotlight the issues and talk to those impacted.
The paper crosses Fault Lines of gender and sexual orientation, by acknowledging that LGBTQIA communities are particularly vulnerable and require information not provided by mainstream media.
Howell believes that mainstream coverage of the pandemic and its economic fallout need more focus on the impacts on marginalized sectors that are not in the mainstream, the underinsured and uninsured, LGBTQIA communities of color, and people of varying abilities.
Howell discussed covering the Fault Line of class, adding that more coverage is needed for small independent businesses that are struggling due to significantly reduced foot traffic. Many news organizations, including the New York Amsterdam News, are finding that stimulus money meant for these businesses mostly went to big corporations.
A recent story published in their paper spotlights this and the outcry: “Black-owned businesses demand share of federal dollars as COVID-19 rages on.” The piece points out that, in the case of a second small business stimulus, “Black business owners believe funds need to be earmarked specifically for African American firms to ensure that their companies survive the pandemic.”
Meantime, Howell also stresses that social safety nets, including crucial mental health supports need to be sufficiently allocated and made more accessible to people of all races, classes, genders, sexual orientations, generations, geographies, abilities and religions.
“It’s important that in our recovery that we look out for everybody…We have to become one community at this point. It’s going to take our collective effort to lift up every individual, every family and city and bring all of us from various levels of resources back to a sense of normalcy, especially those that are most disadvantaged.”
Odette Alcazaren-Keeley is the Director of the Maynard 200 Fellowship at the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.
