This Minority Group Is Different: The media’s tragic ignorance
One thing evident about the coverage of the Sikh Temple shooting in Wisconsin on Sunday that left seven dead, including a gunman with a white supremacist history, was that American journalists know very little about the Sikh religion.
In the hours after the shooting, the media was waiting for the basic information of the case, including the gunman’s identity, how many people died, and whether the violence was over. While waiting, many outlets focused on speculation about who Sikhs are. Much of it was superficial—turbans got several mentions, especially how men wearing them are often confused with Muslims—or inaccurate, like CNN’s speculation that there were “Hindu Sikhs” at the temple. The ignorance of the 24-hour news networks were exposed, as seen in the following Twitter status:
danish@danishism
actual CNN comments: “Sikh people are not Muslim, but Hindu. They can be easily mistaken for Muslim or Taliban.”
5 Aug 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
To be clear, Sikhism is a distinct religion from Hinduism, Islam, and every other faith. But the fact that that’s the initial starting point for providing cultural context for this breaking news is troubling.
There are many times that journalists can feature minority communities in their coverage. Namely, anytime. But breaking news situations such as the Wisconsin shooting show that media is often reactive in its coverage of smaller minority communities and usually in problematic ways. Rather than helping audiences understand the demographic makeup of the United States, the coverage often depicts communities like the Sikhs as a separate entity from American society. This is something that needs to change, according to Rajdeep Singh, director of law and policy at the Sikh Coalition.
“The media has a responsibility to be proactive in covering minorities,” Singh said. “Typically their coverage is reactive. Sikhs tend to get attention only when tragedy occurs. This is true of many minority communities. There is so much that we could learn about one another that is interesting and newsworthy.”