Chandra Johnson, Deseret NewsARTICLE TYPE: ArticleARTICLE TITLE: How is the media affecting race relations in America?ARTICLE SHORTTITLE: How is the media affecting race relations in America?ARTICLE DESCRIPTION: Controversy swirling around L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments has raised a larger question about the media’s role in race relations.ARTICLE TRACKING BEACON: ARTICLE BODY: Controversy swirling around L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments has raised a larger question about the media’s role in race relations.On the Diane Rehm Show Wednesday morning, a day after Sterling was banned from the National Basketball Association for life because of his comments, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Craig Steven Wilder drew a correlation between Sterling and Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher at odds with the federal government over grazing rights and who recently wondered aloud if black people weren’t “better off picking cotton” as slaves. “We’re allowing a conversation about race to obscure some very real and important conversations we need to be having in American society,” Wilder said. “It’s also been mainstreamed by a media presentation that has created Cliven Bundy as a sort of Robin Hood, which he’s not.”Robert Drechsel, director for the Center for Journalism Ethics, also said that the media’s response played a role in the Sterling case.“In this case, everybody jumped on the bandwagon and it really magnified the issue,” Drechsel said.