PBS Newshour

I rely on PBS news programs to give me unbiased accounts of factual events and information. This is why I urge PBS to do a better job of locating accurate stock footage to accompany stories in order to avoid the appearance of bias towards people of color. For example, on the Monday, July 20, 2020 broadcast of the PBS Newshour, a story by Amna Nawaz about the first Covid-19 case in the US began with a stock photo of an African American man on a gurney in front of an ambulance, followed by a photo of a different African American man in front of a hospital. The story was about the first covid case in the US which was a 35 year-old white male from Washington state. The photos of African Americans at the beginning of this story were misleading and unfair. PBS news programs can and should do a better job of finding photos and videos that more accurately match the events and information being reported so that viewers don't connect negatively to people of color, especially African Americans. If no stock footage is available, it would make sense to show the location to the viewers. Images of the US minority population should not account for the majority of images seen on the news in connection with negative events such as disease, crime and poverty. I ask the PBS Newshour to take a closer look at how people of color are portrayed on their platform. Thank you.