John Nichols: King knew what role media had in society

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John Nichols: King knew what role media had in society


The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose legacy is celebrated this weekend, often prodded the media to do a better job of covering the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.


King recognized that, while ending segregation and creating opportunities for African-Americans was his first goal, getting the media to do their job had to be on the agenda.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner knew that organizing, marching and protesting in a vacuum would not bring change. The American people and their elected representatives needed to know that demands were being made for the redress of grievances.

As Jodie Allen, a journalist with U.S. News and World Report, noted, "Martin Luther King presciently saw that the pictures were worth a thousand words in showing this and that segregation could not persist in the face of illumination when the spotlights were on it."

King believed that the generally favorable coverage of the 1963 March on Washington represented a breakthrough, writing in his autobiography, "If anyone had questioned how deeply the summer's activities had penetrated the consciousness of white America, the answer was evident in the treatment accorded the March on Washington by all the media of communication.
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http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=114891&ntpid=0