by Gwen McKinney | Editor & Publisher
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Recent BMSG research has found that older Black women are sorely underrepresented as hosts, contributors, and experts during the coveted primetime hours at the three major cable news networks. In response to these findings, the Unerased | Black Women Speak initiative has created an online directory of sources to help journalists feature more diverse voices in their programs.
by Brian Malte | CalMatters
Thursday, December 02, 2021
In this commentary for CalMatters, Hope and Heal Fund Director Brian Malte recommends four steps we can take to achieve comprehensive and dramatic reductions in gun violence and firearm suicide over the next 5 years. His suggestions include changing the media narrative on violence, which BMSG research has shown provides a distorted view of what types of violence are the most common, who is the most affected, and how communities of color are portrayed. Malte’s article also appeared in the San Francisco Examiner and Marin Independent Journal.
by Isra Shams | Monthly Brands
Friday, November 19, 2021
BMSG has joined a range of privacy, consumer, and health groups in urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate TikTok’s practices, which advocates say violate children’s online privacy protections. “We found that TikTok currently has many regular account holders who are under age 13, and many of them still have videos of themselves that were uploaded as far back as 2016, years prior to the consent decree,” the groups said in their complaint to the FTC.
by Gwen McKinney | Next Avenue
Thursday, September 30, 2021
New research from BMSG reveals a dearth of older Black female voices in primetime cable news programs. In this commentary for Next Avenue, which also appears in Forbes, Gwen McKinney from the Unerased | Black Women Speak initiative makes the case that diversifying the speakers on cable TV would strengthen our national discourse and attract more viewers, benefiting news producers and consumers alike. The research received additional coverage in journal-isms.
by Elena Gooray | VICE
Thursday, September 16, 2021
For Black and Latino communities that already have higher rates of diabetes and obesity, fast-food advertising adds another layer to intergenerational health inequities. However, the issue extends beyond food companies, reaching into the world of Big Tech, explains BMSG Director Lori Dorfman: “The biggest marketers to kids right now are Google and Facebook.” Dorfman’s words have also appeared in the blog Food Processing.
by Jane Ellen Stevens | ACES Too High
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Following an announcement from Gannett that it would rework its coverage of crime, former BMSG consultant Jane Ellen Stevens laments that the change has taken so long and urges the news giant to go even further to serve its community with prevention-oriented coverage. In collaboration with Stevens, BMSG has developed several resources to help journalists report more effectively on crime as a public health issue and end distorted coverage that fuels racial and gender-based stereotypes.
by Maya Mirsky | J Weekly
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
In this interview, BMSG’s director and health equity coordinator share insights for communicating more effectively about COVID-19 and vaccines. They discuss how to address misinformation, what voices we need uplift, and why companies like Facebook and Google need to be held accountable.
by Gina Baleria | News in Context
Friday, May 21, 2021
In this podcast, BMSG Head of Research Pamela Mejia discusses the power of language to influence how people perceive important issues and events, such as the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol. Mejia analyzed news coverage related to the coup, looking for how often terms like “riot,” “mob,” or “insurrection” were used versus sanitized terms like “protest” or “demonstration.” Only about 1/5 of stories used the former terms, while a full 40% referred to the latter. Such language choices can minimize the gravity of the situation, Mejia said, noting that neutral-sounding words like ‘demonstration’ may lead people to conflate an attempted government overthrow with legitimate protests, like those for Black Lives Matter.
by Ariana Remmel | Nature
Friday, May 21, 2021
A new survey on vaccine hesitancy shows the difficulty researchers face in communicating risk information during a pandemic. BMSG Health Equity Coordinator Kathi Schaff notes that it’s not unusual for the public to have questions. However, as we’ve noted previously, barriers to vaccine access may still outweigh communication challenges, despite news coverage to the contrary.
by Lori Dorman and Veronica Carrizales | The Sacramento Bee
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
As tax season comes to an end, BMSG Director Lori Dorfman and Veronica Carrizales of California Calls used this year’s filing deadline as a news hook to elevate the role of taxes in supporting community health and health equity. Appealing to values like interconnection and can-do spirit, they reframe taxes from a place of strength and positivity, offering examples of how taxes allow us to accomplish so much more together than we ever could alone. “The public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a monumental showing of what we can do when we pool our resources,” they write. “It’s a reminder that we need each other, that our fates are inextricably linked.”
