Multimedia Collection
Race Against Prime Time
VHS
58 minutes
PN4784 .B75 R321 1985
Race Against Prime Time is the first film to scrutinize the way television news represents African-Americans. This hard-hitting documentary takes us behind the scenes to the newsrooms of Miami's three network affiliates during the 1980 Liberty City riots. It provides a classic case study of how the news gets made what we see, and what we don't.
In 1980, Miami's Liberty City ghetto erupted in outrage when an allwhite jury acquitted four Miami policemen in the beating death of a black man. When the smoke cleared, 18 people were dead. Race Against Prime Time follows local television newsmen as they make the splitsecond decisions which determine what becomes the news.
News stories invariably characterized whites as victims and blacks as rioters (although most of the dead and injured were black including some attacked by white vigilantes). Coverage failed to place the riots within the context of deteriorating community-police relations and years of civic neglect. Race Against Prime Time shows that in the Information Age racial stereotyping can take the form not so much of blatant distortion as of television's selections and omissions.
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