Pitt summit focuses on African Americans in the media

If there’s an African-American man on television, he’s likely running down a sports field or… If there’s an African-American man on television, he’s likely running down a sports field or running from police.

At least that’s the stance of Jasiri X, an East Liberty resident and local hip-hop artist who spoke at a summit held Tuesday in the University Club to discuss African-American representations in the media.

X joined more than 50 professionals, journalism scholars, researchers and news media executives who attended the all-day, invitation-only event titled “Evolving the Image of the African-American Male in American Media.”

“There’s really only one portrayal, or actually two: either athletes or criminals,” the hip-hop artist said at the summit hosted by Pitt’s Office of Public Affairs.

X founded the New Media Academy, a program for African-American teenagers that teaches them how to create their own media through the use of blogging, video production and social media.

“The coverage of African-American men has been very negative,” X said. “[New Media Academy] puts them in a position to narrate their own story.”

Robert Hill, Pitt spokesman and organizer of the summit, said that the purpose of the event was “to identify evidence of the problem of [the] negative image of young black males in the news media” and discuss solutions.

“We want to evolve the portrayal of young black males to fair, accurate and balanced,” Hill said.

The summit included a number of discussions between young adults, professors and media executives on the portrayal of the African-American man in the media. Marc Lamont Hill, an associate professor of English education at the Teachers College of Columbia University and host of the TV show “Our World With Black Enterprise,” was featured as the event’s keynote speaker.

George Curry, president and CEO of George Curry Media, led a group of three African-American media executives in a discussion about the role of the black press in today’s world.

Curry began the discussion by stating that there are 3.3 million African-Americans in the New York City metropolitan area, yet there are fewer than 25,000 subscribers to African-American magazines and newspapers.

Together, the executives discussed the many challenges that black media faces today, including the lack of subscribers to African-American newspapers and magazines in urban areas such as New York.

“Advertising has been extremely hard to get for African-American magazines,” said Pamela Newkirk, a journalism professor at New York University. “When African-Americans do serious journalism, circulation drops. There’s not a support system for African-American news. People say they want serious news, but as soon as you give it to them, there goes the circulation.”

Tene’ Croom, former news director for American Urban Radio Network, said that part of the problem is the lack of African-Americans in the newsroom.

“You’ve got to put people in the newsroom who look like the people you want to cover. You can’t only have European-Americans,” Croom said. “It’s not a problem of the black press, it’s a problem of the press.”