This is not a revelation to those alert, informed, intelligent citizens who pay attention to news broadcasts. Still, the ongoing media bias towards distinct racial groups is intolerable in democratic societies, whether the U.S., Australia, or Britain. An article in the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology (Voorhees, et al., 2007) states it very well in terms of the media portrayal of minorities in the U.S. Gulf Coast during and after Hurricane Katrina. Storm survivors (there were 1,500 deaths) indicated a "misrepresentation of minorities in media coverage" and this "systematic negative portrayal...contributes to...negative mental models, stereotypes, prejudices and ideologies about others, and hence," worst of all, "...indirectly [leads] to the enactment and reproduction of racism" (Voorhees, p. 418). Works Cited

Balibar, Etienne. (?) Fictive Ethnicity and Ideal Nation.

Cable News Network - CNN (2009). The Black Woman & Family. Retrieved March 6, 2009 at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/black.in.america/index.html.

(2008). Interview: Christiane Amanpour: 'Somehow I don't feel it
In my gut.' The Guardian. Retrieved March 6, 2009, at http://www.guardian.com.uk.

Harb, Zahera, & Bessaiso, Ehab. (2006). British Arab Muslim Audiences and Television

After September 11. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32(6), 1063-1076.

Kabir, Nahid. (2006). Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Australian Media, 2001-2005. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 26(3), 313-322.

Ostrow, Joanne. (2008). More Americans get news online and from cable TV. The Denver Post. Retrieved March 6, 2009, at http://www.denverpost.com/fdcp?1236614347668.

Voorhees, Courte C. (2007). 'Came Hell and High Water': The Intersection of Hurricane

Katrina, the News Media, Race and Poverty. Journal of Community & Applied Social

Psychology. Volume 17, 415-429.