As part of a special race issue, National Geographic examines its own coverage

World Today

Photo credit: National Geographic

U.S. magazine National Geographic acknowledged Monday its long history of controversial storytelling.

The magazine’s April issue is devoted to exploring the subject of race, which led the National Geographic to look back at its 130-year-old coverage.

Editor-in-Chief Susan Goldberg asked John Edwin Mason, a professor of African history and the history of photography at the University of Virginia, to examine the magazine’s coverage of people of color and the world through its archives.

Historian Mason found that the magazine propagated stereotypes that were already deeply entrenched in American society.