Point of View

The U.S. Census reports that people of color make up 36 percent of our country and are growing. Yet even in this era of the first black president, studies have shown that traditional media still continues to portray only a small slice of life when it comes of communities of color.

This is not new. The 1967 Kerner Commission laid some of the blame for the riots that swept through the nation at the feet of a segregated news industry, noting that one of the roles of the media is to facilitate a national conversation between all America.

While legacy media outlets embraced this idea, they have fallen far short of achieving this ideal. The introduction of online news sites provides a new opportunity and it comes at a time when America is rapidly changing and increasing the need for understanding.

With this in mind, we review the homepage content of Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, Slate, Salon, The Grio, The Root, The Loop21 and Mario Wire daily to see how people of color are covered in the “general circulation” news sites and news sites geared at a specific ethnic audience. Recognizing that these sites are continually changing, our daily analysis of these sites is done at the same time. Here’s what we found today: