Who’s In The Frame? A Closer Look at School Closings and the Mainstream Media

Imagine every news story that you read, hear or watch is a painting hanging on an art gallery wall.  Just as the artist determines not only the main subject matter of the painting but everything else that gets included on the canvas, it is the producer of the news story who decides what issue to cover, what “facts” should be included, whose opinion will be voiced and whose opinion will be ignored.  In other words, it is the reporter or journalist who decides what’s inside the frame and what gets left out.  Deciding what issues to cover and what angle or perspective to use is called framing.   How a reporter frames a story is guided by many factors including, but not limited to, the reporter’s experience of the world and the assumptions they’ve made about the issue in question.

Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander & DCPS School’s Chancellor Kaya Henderson listening intently (or not) to the River Terrace Community as they plead for their school.

Let’s take a specific example, local mainstream news reporting on proposed school closings in DCPS.  In this article by Washington Post education reporter Bill Turque School Closings Unlikely to be Widespread, the assumption that school closings will have a positive impact on DCPS is not obvious, but it’s there.   Turque trusts just two sources–School’s Chancellor Kaya Henderson and Deputy Mayor for Education De’Shawn Wright.  As city officials who have a budget to balance, they may prioritize the alleged cost-effectiveness of closing schools over providing a world-class education to the city’s children but that possibility is never explored.  The parents who may be forced to uproot their children from one school and bus them to a location outside of their neighborhoods are not included.  And why should they be?  After all, closings are unlikely to be widespread.  The title of the article itself suggests that only a relatively few families will be inconvenienced and that their loss is acceptable in the face of the positive gains that may or may not be achieved throughout the system as a whole.  Also left out of the frame are the teachers and the students themselves, who may not agree with Kaya Henderson’s definition of an under-enrolled school, especially if that definition means an increase in the size of their classes.   Members of the community at large aren’t likely to be considered at all by mainstream news sources covering education issues but that doesn’t meant they are not impacted when a community’s school is torn down in lieu of luxury condos. To his credit, Turque does mention one school community–River Terrace, whose elementary school is scheduled for closure next year, but he says nothing about how the school’s closing might impact the River Terrace community.  Of course, including all of those voices might take too much time.  No doubt he has a deadline to adhere to.  He may also have constraints on the number of words he’s allowed in his column.  On the other hand, if he really wanted to include the voices of the River Terrace school community in his article, he could have simply provided a link to his previous article River Terrace Pleads for its School.   In this article, River Terrace parents, students and community members are quoted but not until the end of the article.  Also, Turque points out the official estimate of $800,000 in savings should the school be closed, adding in his own words, “no small matter given the city’s fiscal straits.”   If Turque were committed to giving equal weight to both sides of this issue, he might have countered with Kaya Henderson’s statement “If every community had this level of engagement, DCPS would be the best school district in the country,” which surely suggests that $800,000 is no savings at all if the result is a lower level of community engagement. So, let’s review.  Turque’s trusted sources are known to believe in the efficacy of school closings, otherwise they wouldn’t have closed schools in the past and they wouldn’t be advocating for more closings now.  Any sources that just might believe that closing schools will not improve DCPS are not in the frame. Fortunately, we have a frame of our own to fill. On January 12, 2011, over 200 members of the River Terrace Community attended a public hearing regarding the proposed closing of their elementary school.  Over 40 parents, teachers, students and members of the community testified. The video below is just a small portion of that hearing in which Henderson pledged to work with the community. Watch it and you’ll understand why she would make such a pledge.  Why she went back on her word, refusing to help community members with their efforts to increase enrollment and deciding to close the school on December 16, 2011, is a question for another day. Unfortunately, our frame does not have the same reach as the Washington Post or other news media outlets, but if it’s reaching you than something can be done.  Right now, when students, parents and community members continue to be negatively affected by punitive school reform efforts, we must find a way to get our knowledge and opinions into the media frame.  It may not be possible to change the life experience of mainstream reporters like Bill Turque or the rest of the staff of the Washington Post, the Washington Times, DCist, The City Paper and every network television station producing local news, but we can and should relentlessly question their assumptions.  Beyond that, we can find ways to make them hear our stories, to better understand our lives and to respect our knowledge and opinions.  To that end, Empower DC is sponsoring the following:

How To Use The Media Before It Uses You

Join us for Empower DC’s next Empowerment Circle on how to effectively use and create media, an interactive training facilitated by Liane Scott, the coordinator of the Grassroots Media Project.

Wednesday, January 25 2012 6:30 – 8:30 PM Watha T Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood Library 1630 7^th Street NW

Accessible by the Shaw/Howard Metro Station (Green and Yellow line) Use the 7th and R Street exit and its just a couple of steps away

Limited childcare is available for this meeting so please RSVP if you will need childcare. To RSVP or if you have any questions or concerns please contact Daniel del Pielago at 202-234-9119 ext. 104 or via email at Daniel@empowerdc.org

You can also contact me at 202-234-9119 ext. 106 or via email at Liane@grassrootsmediaproject.org.   Although I’ve focused on education in the above example, the techniques we cover are good for any issue or concern.  Developing a clear, concise message is the key to effectively advocating for your issue in the media.  So please join us next Wednesday.   If you can’t make it to the workshop, please forward this information to your progressive friends and acquaintances.  If you’re angry about the treatment of the River Terrace community, then contact any or all of the following public officials:

Mayor Vincent Gray –  call (202) 727-6300  or  email Mayor@dc.gov 

Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson – call (202) 442-5885  or  email Kaya.Henderson@dc.gov

City Council Chairman Kwame Brown –  call (202) 724-8174  or  email kbrown@dccouncil.us

Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander – call (202) 724-8068   or  email yalexander@dccouncil.us

Deputy Mayor for Education DeShawn Wright – call  (202) 727-3636  or   email  dme@dc.gov