Kerner Issue: The Role of HBCUs in Training Journalists to Improve Media Images Post-Kerner

Abstract

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) produce 80% of African American media professionals with college degrees (Crawford, 2013). Howard University, in particular, has been a leading source of Black journalists and other communicators for a half-century. Little research has been conducted to examine the role of Howard University and other HBCUs in diversifying the media and assisting in the expansion of career opportunities for Black journalists, particularly in the aftermath of the release of the 1968 Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Popularly called the Kerner Report, it harshly critiqued mainstream journalism’s role in perpetuating the unrest of the 1960s and the inequalities experienced by African Americans. Specifically, the report faulted the news media in failing to hire African Americans who could provide a more accurate depiction of the challenges faced by African Americans in their communities. Released amid the civil disorders of the 1960s, the Kerner Report became the impetus for as many as six HBCUs to later establish substantial journalism and mass communications programs to train Black journalists to enter mainstream newsrooms as the demands grew to diversify the profession. This article would add to the literature by highlighting the role of HBCUs in desegregating the media and by documenting the efforts of Howard University’s School of Communications, as well as programs at other HBCUs, to expand opportunities for Black journalists and media executives, as well as to offer a counternarrative to the mainstream media’s deficit-based approach in reporting on the lives of Black people.