Race and the American Media

Joseph Torres, Senior External Affairs Director, Free Press; co-author, News for All The People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media

When we think about the history of media in America, it’s easy to think of it in terms of technology – from the rise of newspapers to radio to television to the Internet and beyond. Or you could look at media as a vehicle for reflecting and even contributing to social change – from Colonial-era newspapers encouraging the American Revolution to TV cameras bringing the civil rights movement into 1960s-era living rooms. But there are other ways to examine media in America. Joseph Torres, along with co-author Juan Gonzalez, recently placed the history of media under a different sort of prism – that of race. In their book News for All The People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media, Torres and Gonzalez explore how America’s racial divisions have played a major role in the development of our media system. Joseph Torres will appear at this week's Grassroots Radio Conference in Champaign/Urbana.