Local News Tracking (Extra Credit)

I don't watch the news on a regular basis like I should... I understand that being aware of what is going on around you and what is being covered in your community is important,  I think that watching the news and all of the crimes, violent and nonviolent, can reinforce certain stereotypes we already have been preset to think. This turned out to be a major internal conflict and eye opening experience for me through watching the news every week day over the course of a week and a half. I expected to see the same stories being reported... (yes I understand this is stereotypical and possibly slightly raciest, but at least I am trying to be honest) it would have been no surprise to see an African American who shot someone, or a Hispanic man who stole something or assaulted someone, and a white person (of a lower class) to have been caught doing drugs. This was not necessarily the case in reality.

I found that my stereotyping had caused me to want to reject the media and news for fear of making those stereotypes worse and the ideas splashing over into my life. By this I mean seeing different people in certain areas of town or wherever for that matter and criminalizing them without cause. The news actually did just the opposite to me. I was surprised to find only one of the stories covered was of an African American male doing a criminal act, and to find that it wasn't a shooting, but of a delinquent act of not caring for his grandson which ended up being an accidental death. Also, I was very shocked to see how many women, yes women, who were committing crimes. A woman who has been robbing banks, a woman who has been doing drugs and not caring for her children, a women who broke into a house and shot a man. It was beyond shocking to me that women were performing all of these criminal acts. For some reason I had it in my head that men are the criminals, and a woman only becomes a criminal if a man persuades her to do it. This was not the case. Also, another shocking story was of a someone I actually know. A 25 year-old who has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for shooting a man he was investigating in Iraq. They said that he had executed him; however, the evidence verifies that his story, which is one of self defense, is what actually occurred and not an execution style murder charge. I am trying to not be biased here, because I do not believe that would actually commit this crime, ever!, but the point remains that from watching the news lately and attempting to be a good consumer of the news, that it has only shown me that anyone is capable of committing a crime. However, I did find it interesting that this case is gaining a lot of media coverage because he is an upper-class Caucasian with a mother who is a federal prosecutor and a father who is an officer of the law, in which case is not a usual scenario. 

All in all, I realized that I was wrong with the way I perceive the news media. Also, I was happy to see that even though KOCO News 5 only seemed to have one female African American, she was covering a wide variety of stories. She wasn't segregated to only doing minorities stories. I was impressed with the Oklahoma news, and while there is not as much to report on here, and it is very likely that in larger cities where more crime occurs, more prejudice is seen in newscasting and story reporting, I think Oklahoma is doing a fine job.