A recent survey presented on Grade the News concerning the quality of coverage related to youth issues is an interesting reminder of why accurate reporting is so important.  The Youth Media Council (YMC), dedicated to improving news coverage of youth and youth policy, and the Youth Justice Project (YJP), dedicated to developing formerly incarcerated youth into advocates for social change, monitored the San Jose Mercury News to evaluate the fairness and accuracy of stories about youth.  Youth coverage is so important to analyze because it shapes public attitudes and opinions about younger generations and because past surveys have found youth stories to be racially biased and disproportionately focused on crime.  Since San Jose is a very diverse area both ethnically and economically, the San Jose Mercury provided a particularly interesting case study.  Questions considered in the survey include: does the paper cover youth policy developments in juvenile justice, education, and child welfare? In reporting on youth, who gets to speak and who doesn’t? How is race/racism discussed in such stories? Does loaded language or do loaded images appear in stories about youth?

Here’s a quick summary of the survey’s findings. The Mercury didn’t have stories with loaded language or images. But the youth coverage did not focus enough on education, child welfare, or juvenile justice policies.  Stories tended to focus more on crime related incidents.  The youth stories also lacked youth sources often quoting adults more than youth.  Fortunately the adults who were quoted were not also part of the police force or politicians, but rather youth advocates. Not a single youth or youth policy story discussed racism or its impacts on youth. And when race was mentioned, the representation was not proportionate to the population of diverse ethic groups in the region.

In response, the YMC and the YJP gave some recommendations to the Mercury News to better discuss the important issues affecting youth.  The paper should re-instate the youth beat, which was once a temporary staff position.  Moreover, the position’s role should be deepened and the newspaper should form a tighter relationship with youth sources working on pertinent issues.   In particular, the paper should report on the impact of structural racism and poverty and the disproportionate impact of social policies on youth of color and their families.  The newspaper should focus on incorporating the voices of youth spokespeople and could perhaps add a column specifically devoted to or designed for youth. 

Source: Grade the News