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The Race Beat : The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, And The Awakening Of A Nation

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Roberts, Gene, and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. New York: Knopf, 2006. The Race Beat, written by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, was about the major impact that the press had on the American People to show the ignorance we’d had to that point in ignoring the horrible segregation our country was showing towards african americans. The events portrayed take place during the civil rights movement. The Race Beat shows the change in style of coverage of the civil rights movement and how the movement itself could take advantage of the press and use it in a much more productive way than before. The author points out in his thesis what he is trying to prove. “There is little in American society that was not altered by the civil rights movement.There is little in the civil rights movement that was not changed by the news coverage of it. And there is little in the way the news media operate that was not influenced by their coverage of the movement.”(page 7) The authors were very good at proving this thesis to be correct because of their first hand experience that is portrayed and the accuracy of the reaction to the new reporting, as it gained national attention. Gene Roberts was one of the young reporters that took on coverage and Hank Klibanoff was one of the editors. The information and coverage of their first hand accounts is very detailed and gives a perspective to the reader, but what stands out is the

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