New book Race-Baiter reveals how the media wields dangerous words to divide a nation.
“Even as the election of the first black president forces us all to reevaluate how we think about race, gender, culture, and class lines, some areas of modern media are working hard to push the same old buttons,” says author of Race-Baiter, veteran journalist and media critic Eric Deggans, who in this new book dissects the powerful ways modern media feeds fears, prejudices, and hate, while also tracing the history of the word.
“Race-baiter” is a term born out of this tumultuous climate, coined by the conservative media to describe those who seek advantage from unfair accusations of racism. Here are nine dangerous words the media uses as featured in Deggans’ Huffington Post column.
In this new book, Deggans claims “Gone is the era of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, when media sought a wide spectrum of American viewers. Today, the fastest-growing media platforms fight hard for increasingly narrow segments of the public, playing on old prejudices. Using the same tactics once used to mobilize political parties, they send their fans coded messages and demonize opposing groups, in the process securing valuable audience share and website traffic.”
Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the Tampa Bay Times, Florida’s largest newspaper, as well as a freelance contributor to National Public Radio, CNN.com and the Huffington Post. He has appeared as a pundit/expert on CNN, PBS, Fox News and MSNBC, and his work has appeared in a host of newspapers and magazines ranging from the conservative Newsmax magazine to the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Miami Herald and Detroit News, and VIBE, Hispanic, and Ebony magazines.
Of Deggans' book, Andy Borowitz of “The Borowitz Report” says, “Eric Deggans is one of the most insightful and provocative writers about television today. In his columns for the [Tampa Bay Times] and his NPR commentaries, Deggans has established himself as a voice worth listening to. His many fans—and I'm one of them—will devour this book.”
Race-Baiter published by Palgrave Macmillan is currently available in Hard cover [$28.00], and can be purchased via Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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