Research Findings

Preliminary analysis of our findings offers insights into how residents of a stigmatized community navigate and interpret local coverage, and the opportunities and limitations of solutions journalism to engage these audiences.

Coping with Media Stigmatization

While many U.S. residents are distrustful of the media,^iv the cynicism of South LA residents is grounded in a history of media portrayals that depict the high-poverty area as rife with violence, crime, and civil unrest. Focus group participants revealed how this media coverage impacts their interpretation of the news they consume.

Overall, participants expressed dissatisfaction with how South LA is covered.^v Many pointed to a disconnect between media portrayals and their experiences. As one woman explained, “You’re looking like, well, dang isn’t there anything positive in South LA? I know there’s a lot going on positive over here. Why are we not seeing that on the news? Why do we always see the bad stuff?”⁵⁰

This is not to say there was no interest in or value placed on negative news. Several participants spoke of using news about crime or violence to judge if there were particular parts of their neighborhood they should avoid due to safety concerns. For example, one woman referenced an incident in the summer of 2015 when threats and rumors circulated on social media and mainstream news about “one hundred days and one hundred nights” of retaliatory gang violence. “I appreciate that you’re informing me about that situation so I know,” she said. News reports warned her that some of the neighborhoods she frequented might have been affected by violence: “It stopped me from walking into an ambush. I stopped going, and that way I didn’t have to put myself in harm’s way.”⁵¹

However, many mentioned a gap between their observed experience and what is reported. A few cited examples of what they viewed as newsworthy events, both positive (e.g., a festival) and negative (e.g., a shooting), that they had witnessed firsthand but which never made the news. Some attributed this disconnect to the commercial priorities of media, while others were openly suspicious of the media’s motives. As one man said, “They keep you out of focus on what’s really going on.”⁵² Many lamented news’s emphasis on entertainment, though some acknowledged continuing to consume this type of content anyway. Participants were critical of news media’s (and particularly television news’s) “circus”-like quality, its lack of investigation or follow-up coverage, or attempts to hold responsible parties accountable.

For these residents, dissatisfaction with local news is about more than a lack of quality coverage. Several participants spoke of local media as harmful, and as a contributor to racialized representations. One man explained:

It’s a lot of weight coming from negative exposure to media …It can have a heavy, negative mental or psychological effect on you. You have stuff going on in your own life, but then you hear about something bad that’s happening and it’s not even related to you. It can make it feel even worse.⁵³

Others spoke of how the negative coverage stigmatizes residents to outsiders: “It makes us look like mostly criminals live around South LA,” said a twenty-year-old Latino participant.⁵⁴ Another focus group member referenced watching television with his grandmother: “I’ll hear her say things like, ‘Lord, have mercy’ … I see the pain that she feels for people she doesn’t even know.” A young African-American man said while watching TV he felt moved by the racialized nature of news coverage:

I get filled with a bunch of emotions when I see the biased opinion of the media—when, say, a white guy goes out and starts shooting at places, they probably wouldn’t even show his picture. But if it was an African-American male, he would be blasted all over the media as an infamous person.⁵⁵

Several participants lamented the lack of articulate community members representing them in the news. A fifty-six-year-old man recounted an incident where a reporter was looking for someone to react to an event in a park. “He picked out the cat that’s been sleeping on the bench all day to describe what just happened. And I’m standing right there. I’m fresh, I’m pressed … I’m literate,” he said, adding that the media perpetuates negative representations by “picking the worst grape” of the bunch.⁵⁶ Others suggested this phenomenon is worsened by those reporters covering South LA, who tend to be outsiders to the area; they're reportedly distant from the community, don’t take issues seriously, and at times even exacerbate local tensions by appearing to favor one group over another.

One participant felt that, as a young African-American man, some news personalities are disrespectful to people like himself. He said he tried to avoid news reported by journalists whom he felt “would dismiss me on the same topic.” He cited an example of television news he was watching about violence between African-American and Latino gangs. At the end of the story, the reporter, who was Latina, “made a comment that was, like, really offensive … something about leaving a ‘black eye on the community,’” he said. Given the reporter’s own ethnic background, he interpreted this as a racial slur and suggested insensitive comments by journalists could “create barriers.”⁵⁷

Accounting for the problematic nature of local media coverage, residents have developed various strategies for finding out about the happenings in their communities. While some said their distrust causes them to limit their news intake and thus minimize the “stress” of negative coverage, others spoke of seeking out alternative sources. A few mentioned alternative weeklies and ethnic newspapers, particularly as ways to connect to positive community events. Several described how the Internet allows them to access a greater array of sources, which are largely seen as more trustworthy than local television news. For example, one woman said she avoided television because she thought it was too “sensationalist”:

I know that if I go [onto] the Internet I will find more veracity. I will not run only into one agency, but I will find many. For example, my brothers send me links and tell me, “Go here and go there.” So then I go … find a different opinion from the other news—that news is manipulated to interest the people.⁵⁸

For her, the Internet also offers a way for trusted, interpersonal connections to mediate news sources—vetting them and giving them more authority. For many, interpersonal sources accessed both through face-to-face interaction and social media were considered the most reliable methods for learning about local information and verifying other sources. Those participants who consume legacy media described doing so with oppositional readings. For example, one man spoke of laughing through television broadcasts viewed as incomplete or disingenuous—and then calling his friends or family to find out what was “really” going on.⁵⁹

Critical Optimism and Solutions Journalism

In contrast to general perceptions of media coverage, most respondents expressed appreciation for the solutions-oriented story introduced in the focus group. A number of participants said the article about abandoned lots and efforts to transform them into parks made them think about how they themselves could get involved with the issue. “What came to my mind is how I could volunteer,” said one person.⁶⁰ Others looked beyond the particular case presented to other possibilities for community action: “You can look forward to changing something yourself if you have the same goal in mind.”⁶¹

Those groups that were first asked to read the non-solutions version of the story—which only discussed challenges presented by vacant lots and did not include efforts to address the problem—often, unprompted, suggested the story would have been better had it included solutions. Several volunteered prompts for how they would tell the story differently by including ideas for how to develop the lots to serve community needs. Meanwhile, some participants pointed out that even the non-solutions version of the story was more valuable than the “typical” South LA news piece^vi focused on crime and social ills, because at least it incorporated articulate voices from community members affected by the issue. According to these participants, the non-solutions version of the story did not function as an average baseline of typical coverage. While they welcomed solutions journalism, they acknowledged that even negative coverage would be an improvement over the status quo if it were more in-depth and inclusive of community perspectives.

Solutions journalism’s problem solving orientation resonated with what several participants offered as the ideal role of news. They suggested that the purpose of news should be to go beyond traditional notions of journalistic objectivity. Some said news has a responsibility to facilitate positive community change and civic engagement. One participant noted that “news needs to be an actual participant in what’s happening rather than just reporting on it …it needs to be a part of the change.”⁶² A few expressed seemingly contradictory ideas. For example, one group reached a consensus that it was the job of the media to do no more than “tell the truth”—while at the same time the media also had a responsibility to “make us aware and give us a solution.”⁶³ Participants reflected many of the controversies and contradictions embedded within strands of journalism. Overall, though, their ideas regarding a journalist’s role resonated more with solutions journalism, civic journalism, and peace journalism camps than with traditional schools of objective journalism.

While there was enthusiasm for the particular solutions-oriented story discussed and the larger concept of solutions journalism, we also heard reservations. Residents were quick to situate solutions offered in the context of the larger scope and scale of systemic challenges facing South Los Angeles. As one fifty-six-year-old man pointed out, “That’s just, like, one story … Where we come from, that’s like a drop in the bucket.”⁶⁴

A critical concern was that solutions-oriented stories must be careful not to neglect a detailed exploration of the problem or to suggest there is not a continued need to press for action. “If all of it is positive, it kind of glossed over the problem,” said a fifty-nine-year old Latino participant. “It kind of also gives you a feeling of ‘oh, no problem … it’s taking care of itself.’ ”⁶⁵ This concern resonates with Tuchman’s critical assessment of positive story elements—or the assurance that authorities are doing “everything they can” as a way of undercutting action or discontent from audiences.⁶⁶ The participant cautioned that stories need to offer a mix of both positive potential solutions and analysis of more negative social problems:

You gotta be able to handle bad news. You can’t be like, “Oh, I don’t want to hear that because I might get depressed.” It’s not realistic to expect everything to be sunshine and lollipops in life. Anybody who’s grown up around here should know that already, but you gotta get the information out no matter what the impact is.⁶⁷

Residents also had ideas about how solutions journalism could go further to critically challenge assumptions about South LA. After reading just one story, a selection of participants did not feel its impact would be sufficient as a standalone model. Instead, they suggested including more follow-up coverage and integrating community input.

Despite seeing a need for improvement, most panelists suggested they would be more likely to read or watch solutions-oriented stories if given the opportunity. They also said they would discuss solutions journalism stories with friends and families: “It offers more of a platform not to just discuss it, but … to tell them of how we can get involved to try to change it or trying to make something different.”⁶⁸ Some even suggested that solutions journalism, and efforts to solicit community input on solutions, could help to strengthen connections in otherwise fragmented communities. “It would actually bring the community … back together.”⁶⁹