Black Americans have a negative view of how media outlets cover them in the news – an opinion widely shared by Blacks regardless of age, gender and political party affiliation.

Nearly four in ten (39 percent) Black adults have come across news that is racist or racially insensitive to Black people extremely or somewhat often, according to a  Pew Research Center study of nearly 5,000 Black adults released Tuesday (Sept. 26). Another 41 percent said they have sometimes seen such coverage.

“In our local newspaper, like I said, I don’t trust it and there are definitely not Black writers employed with that newspaper. … If they were hiring Black people then that would tell me something more about the newspaper itself and their sort of values, so I don’t have that,” a 40-year-old Black woman participating in a focus group told researchers.

More than one-third (36 percent) of those polled blamed a lack of Black news staff for racist or racially insensitive coverage. A slight majority, 51 percent, said media outlets are pushing an agenda.

“I feel like they make us look stupid at times … I have a feeling that any time that I see [a Black person being interviewed on the news] it’s always those people that I feel like that have a hard time speaking correctly or I guess their vocabulary is very limited. And I feel like they do that on purpose,” a 29-year-old Black male survey participant said.

Looking to the future, most Black Americans doubt that their communities will receive fair coverage in their lifetimes: 38 percent think it’s not likely, and 40 percent said it is somewhat likely to happen. Only 14 percent of those surveyed were optimistic.

To improve news coverage of their communities, Black Americans widely underscored the need to inform journalists about the issues affecting the Black community. Almost three-quarters (73 percent) said it is extremely or very important for journalists to understand the history behind the stories they cover about Black people. Most of them (59 percent) also stressed that it’s essential for journalists to engage personally with the people they cover.