COMM 386: Wall Street Journal article on race

The Wall Street Journal today has a nuanced story on race in the aftermath of President-elect Barack Obama's victory at the polls. Not only is the story nuanced, the lede is nuanced:

Barack Obama's election as the first black U.S. president promises to usher in a new era of race relations. But it is likely to be a complex evolution, marked by new issues and tensions.

Short, too, and readable. You don't always get all of those together in a lede.

A nut graf:

One of America's racial paradoxes is that there has been enormous progress in the public sphere: Blacks and whites watch Oprah Winfrey on television, cheer Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters in sports and voted for Mr. Obama. But in their private lives, segregation persists and economic disparities remain wide.

Addressing these deeper problems may be beyond the capacity of any single politician, many blacks and whites agree.

But mostly the article quotes people. It's short on analysis -- and punditry -- but it's short to begin with. And it does show the media taking an interest in a serious issue.