European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 17, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Sidelights finding positive rays amid the ghetto cracks Clarence Page when president Bush spoke to a mostly Black and understandably sceptical audience in riot torn los Angeles two weeks ago he issued a Call for us in the news Media to focus less on a negative news and More on a what the remark brought something Bush Seldom receives from a Black inner City audience. He received a standing ovation. It goes to show something we in the Media already know. To paraphrase . Mencken hardly one Ever goes broke overestimating the Public a contempt for the Media. But the sentiment on this occasion was particularly Heartfelt among people who feel quite justifiably that the Media and other institutions fail to give them the credit they deserve for the hard work Many of them Are doing against tremendous Odds to save their communities. The president was speaking at the challenger boys and girls club just the sort of a what works Story that gets too Little attention from the rest of us. The challengers was founded by Lou Dantzler a school janitor and son of North Carolina sharecroppers who thought the kids in South Central los Angeles needed a wholesome place in which to hang out. If i build it they will come he said like the fellow in Field of dreams. The club began in 1968 with 12 members. It has 2,200 now. A a it a not a Job a he told me. A a it san it is a special place so special that the riot which destroyed millions of dollars Worth of property across the Street left the challengers building untouched. Its a remarkable Story especially for a part of town outsiders tend to write off As a hopeless and forbidden zone. Yet it seems we Are less Likely to see the challengers a real Success Story in our major Media than we Are Likely to see and hear the usual stories of failure. Why is that part of the reason is Public perceptions. We cover More Good news than our audiences realize but they done to remember. It simply does no to have the Impact that bad news does. But the blame cannot be Laid on our audience alone. We in the Media sometimes fall into a conspiracy. When we Are not ignoring the poor Side of town we arc characterizing its people As stereotypes and archetypes not As full blown people. It is not a sinister conspiracy by design but a benign conspiracy of habit. I plan to Deal with this More fully in my Book if 1 Ever get around to writing it. I have a title at least pathologies of the press. You know How people talk about the a a underclass and its pathologies Well the press has pathologies too. One of them is the negative news syndrome. It starts with a widely accepted Standard of news judgment news is what happens when things Arentt working the Way they Are supposed to. We do not cover the thousands of planes that take off and land safely each Day. We cover the few that crash. That a understandable. But on the local level it Means communities that Are Busy being reborn Are not nearly As newsworthy As those that Are Busy dying. So the challengers where lives undoubtedly arc being saved every Day from gangs and crack and Otic r depravity is winds up in the Back pages of the newspaper. We kiss it off As a heartwarming human interest feature or an uneventful a a process Story while the death of the Day makes Page i. Good news from the ghetto also suffers from the scepticism All Good reporters learn to have Early in their careers. I am reminded of the Chicago City news Bureau slogan a if your Mother says she loves you Check it out a Good advice. But scepticism often leads to cynicism for big City reporters especially when the culture of the newsroom convinces them that nothing absolutely nothing can help those poor souls Over there in the ghetto. There Are wonderful exceptions. A Chicago newspaper reporter discovered Independent school teacher Marva Collins performing what appeared to be miracles at her West Side prep. Her Fame quickly spread thanks to 60 minutes and a made for to movie starring Cicely Tyson. Similar movies celebrated father George Clements the Black adoptions and education advocate and Jaime Escalante the teacher who proved poor los Angeles High school kids could be taught to learn calculus As Well As suburban kids do. These local heroes also were discovered by enterprising newspaper reporters. So was Dantzler who yes also has signed a movie contract. No one is allowed to do anything extraordinary in los Angeles without having a movie contract thrust into his Reginalde Ricks Center and Robert Titus meet a National guardsman during the . Riots. Hands unfortunately when we Are not ignoring local ghetto heroes we canonize them As superhuman or so close to it that we Send a message that nobody else had better even try to do what this person has done. On the contrary Collins Clements and Escalante will Tell you As they have told me they Are not doing a thing that others do and in Many Unsung unreported cases Arentt doing already. A anybody can do it who really has the heart and soul a says Dantzler. Now that the tragic events in los Angeles have Given our Globe trotting president a second Chance to pay new attention to americans cities we in the Media also have a second Chance to pay attention to grass roots leaders who form the antibodies that fight the infections that bring everyone Down. And if we pay attention maybe our audience will pay attention too. Everybody likes to hear a Little Good news once in a while. The Chicago Tribune this is Clarence Pago s debut in sunday Magazine. Page s work originates on the pages of the Chicago Tribuna. He was part of a Tribune task Force investigation on vote fraud that won a pulitzer prize in 1972. He also collected a pulitzer for news commentary in 1989. Page has been published in Chicago Magazine new Republic Playboy and the Washington latest car models made in the world Andy Rooney the japanese May be suffering from the same thing we almost died of a Success. As the japanese Stock Market dropped recently it was a Surprise to see that the japanese Economy is subject to the same bad things that happen in the United states. Its no reason for us to turn Handspring but there is a competitive animosity Between our two countries that makes it difficult for us not to take some plea sure in any japanese decline. If you live Long enough you learn that you can to say things have gone to hell in America because if you do first thing you know everything a great again and you look foolish. It has happened three times in my life and its going to happen again. The United states has too Many Good things going for it to become a second rate nation. We have a lot of space. We have a lot of natural resources. We have a lot of capable people. They wont be the same old Good times when they do come because a new world order is evolving but it is going to be Good and the candidate in office will be Lucky it came on his watch. It la come in spite of not because of what the president does. The new world order is happening so gradually we done to notice it but its happening. The automobile business is a Good example. About 20 years ago the Auto Industry started to decline. It was putting out poorly designed poorly engineered poorly built junk. It got fat and Lazy. The big improvement from year to year was the Hood ornament. I have bought a Cadillac five years ago if a dealer had offered me one for half Price. Its still not my kind of car but there have been several glowing reviews recently of their latest Model. Cadillac May be Back in the Mercedes Bow class. I bought an inexpensive american car More than a year ago a i never thought id say $16,000 was a in expensive a and in be been very impressed with it. Its a Good car. This resurgence of the . Auto Industry Isnit pure Detroit. A global Auto Industry has crept up on us when we weren to looking. We know the japanese have opened factories in Ohio and Tennessee and we know about the general motors Toyota Plant in California but we Are not so aware of what a fractured process Auto production has become everywhere in the world. There Are no longer Many purely japanese or purely american cars. Ford makes cars in South Korea. Even the German Auto Industry is using japanese parts. Its stupid for anyone in Detroit to Start any kind of anti japanese car crusade because a lot of people in town make their living turning out major components for cars that Are Only nominally japanese. Tire cars the washers want americans to buy probably have 50 parts made in 10 other countries. More and More our cars Are neither japanese nor american they re International hybrids. When an american manufacturer starts making pieces or assembling cars in Mexico or Canada it May Hurt some american workers but its a great help to Mexico. If the whole world is going to improve with a better life Foi All the people in it this globalization of industries like the automobile Industry is the Way it will happen. a Orvious May 1 7, 1992 sunday a Page 9
