Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Michael Brown, the 18-year-old young man whose death at the hands of a local police officer sparked two weeks of protest, was buried on Aug. 26.
On the day of Brown's funeral, The New York Times published a 1,500-word piece that aimed to paint Brown as a young man "grappling with problems and promise."
John Eligon, a Kansas City-based correspondent for the Times, described Brown in the fifth paragraph of his story, as "no angel, with public records and interviews with friends and family revealing both problems and promise in his young life."
Casting Brown as less than an "angel" sparked a torrent of criticism, both on social media and mainstream news organizations' opinion pages.
On Twitter, users tweeted to @nytimes their relatively minor infractions, such as skipping school and taking home superfluous condiments from fast-food joints, in the event that they, like Brown, are killed by police.
Eligon and the Times backpedaled, albeit unsuccessfully, and called it a poor choice of words. Other commenters later pointed out that the Times previously used more sympathetic terms to describe both serial murderer Ted Bundy and Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. Mike Brown didn't so much as have an adult arrest record, much less kill anybody.
The New York Times' description of Brown is part of a much wider and more troubling trend of the way media cover the deaths of young black men, compared to the way the same outlets cover killings of and by whites. After white men Jared Loughner and James Holmes participated in mass shootings in Arizona and Colorado, respectively, a lot of national media fell all over themselves to try to understand how these "quiet," "highly intelligent" young men were driven to kill.
By contrast, when black men and teenagers—such as Brown, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis—are shot to death, the media ask what the young men did to deserve it. When the victim is black, media point out their failure to be angels and saints. When the victim is white, the media explain their humanity.
We aren't arguing that people who commit crimes should avoid prosecution or even punishment. But imagine if, in the wake of the untimely deaths of young white people, the media went looking for all the bad things they did just prior to their deaths. It would be disgusting as well.
Furthermore, it's the media's inequitable treatment of black and white victims that feed and reinforce the very stereotypes reflected in The New York Times' story, continuing a never-ending cycle of intolerance, even hatred.
Ferguson proved what too many already know: It is long past time for the media—all media—must rethink and retool their uneven coverage of whites and non-whites, whether they're victims or accused of committing a crime.
Comments
SDSmith 9 years, 8 months ago
I don't know what you guys are reading but on the net...its all about what an innocent, young black man has to do to keep from getting shot. Of course, it's all BS on both sides.
Most middle class (values/priorities not race) people are generally dumbfounded by the media and black activist/spokesmen in the community by their amazing lack of any sense of accountability or shame. We do not get that. We will never understand that.
From Tawana Brawley, the Duke Rape Incident, to Travon Martin, to a mayor smoking crack in a hotel room on video there's a sense that black Americans have zero sense of reality when it's "one of them".
For middle class America, the white cop is someone who should be investigated. If he's guilty and the investigation bears that out. Fine. Toss him in jail where he belongs. The problem most of us have right now is the sense of a lynch mob and rush to conclusion especially in light of those other incidents referred to above.
I'm not discounting the concerns of black Americans but they are raised to always think about race. In today's society if you have an issue with someone who isn't getting the job done and you raise it....well, if that person is black then in their mind it's about their race. Not about a lack of performance or attendance or behavior inappropriate to the workplace. That attitude and tilt undermines what acceptance and progress we have made in race relations over the last fifty years.
In many ways, it is getting worse not better....the black community isn't helping either.
forrest 9 years, 8 months ago
Seriously? He's "No angel?" He punched a police officer so hard that the officer will have to undergo reconstructive surgery to fix a broken eye socket and will probably deal with the effects of his traumatic brain injury (the same injury soldiers get from IED explosions) for years to come.
There is a video of him assaulting an unarmed, smaller man just minutes before his death over a box of blunts. Calling him "no angel," is like calling the sun warm. He was a violent criminal and there is more than enough evidence of that fact out in the open at this point that we should stop treating him as if he were innocent.
This kid was larger than the majority of professional football linebackers. He was violent. He assaulted a police officer to the point that that officer needs surgery to fix the damage caused by this 18 year old bully.
Any time a white man shoots a black criminal, it seems, the media portrays him as a criminal and completely overlooks the actual criminal's actions leading up to the shooting. It is absolute nonsense! Yeah, I get it, this is a liberal news paper; but that doesn't excuse completely overlooking fact in order to make a police officer into a murderer just for defending himself.
In the Travon Martin case, the fact that he was unarmed and carrying skittles and fruit punch made him seem like an innocent teenager who was murdered by a racist wanna-be cop. I won't say that George Zimmerman's actions were intelligent that night, or that he wasn't looking to be a hero, but Martin was NOT innocent. Again, he started the fight that led to his death. Sitting on top of Zimmerman, raining down punches and slamming his head into the concrete are not the actions of an innocent person.
The skittles and fruit punch sound like candy, but to teens, police officers, and private investigators like myself; we see something completely different. Skittles and fruit punch are two of the three ingredients in the makeshift street drug "lean," a drug that causes paranoia and violent outbreaks in teens at an alarming rate. Martin's autopsy showed massive amounts of the drug in his system from overusing the drug for quite some time. There were burglary tools found in the bushes feet from where the attack happened found the next morning by police officers.
Yes, there are honest attacks by white people against black people. Jackson witnessed this first hand a few years ago with the vehicular assault by Brandon residents in our city. Nobody has come out and called those children "innocent victims" or even "no angel" because we know the truth, they were racist kids who murdered a man simply because he was different that them. But attacking a police officer for shooting a much larger man during an extremely violent assault immediately following that man's most recent felony is a complete miscarriage of justice and an Orwellian reversal of the words "attacker" and "victim."
tstauffer 9 years, 8 months ago
Forrest... probably time to walk back the eye socket argument...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slates...">http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slates...
I hadn't seen it yet elevated to the level of an IAD blast, but presumably that characterization will also require some reshaping.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
I'm still wondering if The Clarion-Ledger will run a correction and apology for Ann Coulter's column spreading the unconfirmed eye-socket meme should it not be confirmed to be true by actual medical reports. We would, but they're not us, I understand.
On that topic, it's just REMARKABLE to me that the paper can manage to run Coulter, after all of her falsehoods and vicious ad hominems over the years, but not figure out how to write a 300-word editorial about stuff happening right here in Mississippi. It's really not that hard to make happen.
Back to our regularly scheduled discussion ...
On that note, Forrest, I'm rather stunned that you're trying to compare Michael Brown and other unarmed shooting victims to the Dedmon crowd who drove into Jackson looking for black people to "mess with" and then intentionally running over Mr. Anderson to kill him.
With posts (and logic) like that, you are only proving everything I wrote in the above column.
forrest 9 years, 8 months ago
Wow, attacking me for mentioning an actual hate crime against a minority... So when I agree that there are very real problems and attacks happen, I'm still wrong?
That's the exact logic people laugh at with liberals. You can't win a discussion on facts, so I must be racist.
Good job making your side look like y'all actually want to discuss things instead of attack people. I came here to discuss the news, you seem to be here to bash anyone who disagrees with your views. WTG
forrest 9 years, 8 months ago
Ok, I'll accept that his eye socket may not have been broken. The news reports I read stated that he suffered a broken socket and TBI. (Punches can easily lead to TBI's. Happens to boxers all the time. Not going to say that this case involves that, considering this report, but it's a possibility.)
Tell me this though? Do you think Mr. Brown was innocent? Do you think that he had the right to assault a police officer?
If no, how would you have reacted in that officer's situation? He was being beaten by a 6'4 300lb violent felon (punching a police officer is a felony) and reports indicate that he reached for the officer's gun.
Having seen the autopsy report photos, it's clear that at least two of the wounds were made while Brown's arms were reaching towards the officer at close range, not while his hands were in the air. The bullets traveled down his arm from wrist to elbow and from elbow to shoulder. The only way those rounds could have taken that trajectory is if they were fired while his hands were reaching towards the officer.
The round entering the top of his head and exiting under his chin could only have been fired if he was bent over towards the officer as well. No witnesses reported seeing the officer standing over Mr. Brown shooting him. The final round entered his eye socket. According to audio recordings of the incident, those two shots were fired within milliseconds of each other. The logical explanation for that is that Brown was bent over charging the officer. The first round through his head would have created a negative pressure and pulled his head up for the final round to enter near his eye.
I've seen these same wounds before. In Iraq it wasn't uncommon for people to charge us like this and the result was nearly identical to this wound pattern. This is what you expect to see when you shoot someone who is charging you like this. Go find a friend or family member who served over there and ask them what they see when they look at the wound pattern here. You'll likely get the exact same answer.
There are things to be upset about in Ferguson. The reaction by the police after the shooting was horrid. There are photos of masked officers aiming rifles at unarmed citizens who's hands are in the air. There are reports of beatings and arrests of reporters covering the story. Wilson's command promising a thorough prosecution of the case instead of a thorough investigation of the case. Lots of things went wrong after the fact, but that doesn't change the fact that an officer was assaulted by a man who had committed two violent felonies in under 10 minutes and he is still being called an innocent victim while the officer's life, career, and freedom are being threatened by mob rule after he defended himself against a much larger man who started the fight.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
I will add that Dedmon and the other (white) conspirators are still alive, in no small part because Mr. Anderson's (black) family ask that they not be subject to the death penalty. And in that case as well, there are very serious issues to consider about what they were raised to believe and what society taught them that led them to that point, which my column is also about. It's up to adults of all races to have those dialogues. You clearly are among the percentage who isn't interested in learning about other people's realities, just choosing to try to whitesplain it all away. But it's not up to you whether we have this conversation. We must, and we will, and God willing that will keep many more people of all races alive and out of prison. Your way, and the denial it emcompasses, is the one that has failed us and brought us to where we are. We can and must do better than that.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
Ha, http://wonkette.com/523148/stupidest-...">just found this response to idiots who spread the idea that it was OK to pre-kill Trayvon because he had bought Skittles to go home and make up a batch of illegal drugs.
And interesting: Wasn't it the Gateway Pundit who first "broke" the unsubstantiated "news" that Officer Wilson had a broken eye socket? Y'all really have to find better sources.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
Then http://drugsandotherthings.wordpress....">there's this to consider, if true. I'm no expert on using candy to make drugs:
Well- first off- sundancer either ignorantly or intentionally as it fits his view, ignores the fact that the candy Skittles is NOT an ingredient of the concotion. Skittles in this sense is simply slang for Coricidin Cold Pills which contain DXM.
and
The autopsy does not show any signs of liver damage and indeed clearly states “normal”.
And never mind that both the physical and mental damage claimed from DXM would take years of sustained abuse to manifest. And abuse at levels incompatible with someone of Trayvons age. And abuse at levels which surely would have manifested in both social and legal knowledge of the abuse.
and
I should also point out that “the conservative treehouse” claims to have references to “DXM” in Trayvons facebook history. Which of course- has conveniently been unavailable since the hacking episodes shortly after his death. But some research seems to indicate that there was no such reference- but instead a number of references to the rapper DMX.
tstauffer 9 years, 8 months ago
Tell me this though? Do you think Mr. Brown was innocent? Do you think that he had the right to assault a police officer?
If you're asking me this personally, my response is that I'm not as quick to judgement as you seem to be about this case. I don't know that he assaulted an officer, I don't know how the officer responded, and I don't know if, in either case, if it was or wasn't excessive force.
You, on the other hand, are including any and all corroborating "evidence" for your point of view -- including some quick leaps to the worst possible conclusion and an uncritical assurance in your personal long-distance forensic analysis -- while ignoring anything that doesn't seem to fit.
I'll just say thing -- I hope the grand jury considers all sides of the argument more completely.
The question in front of them is not "was Mr. Brown innocent" but, rather, where Wilson's actions excessive?
THClevel0321 9 years, 8 months ago
While I agree that the choice of words "no angel" are particularly inappropriate given the circumstances, I'm sure you understand that the point of the story was to portray Brown in a more human light – as a young man who, although not perfect, was on his way to prosperity despite the odds against him.
You are spot on when you say the national media displays racial bias in the way it reports stories, but there's got to be a better example than the NYT.
I read the Times every day. A quick look at the headlines in the past two weeks will show that it has published 47 stories on the events in Ferguson, and I've found their coverage to be interesting, comprehensive and fair. In essence, you are taking the Newspaper of Record to task over 1/47th of their coverage on one subject – and more specifically the phrasing in one section of that one article, for which they have already apologized – and making it sound like editorial staff and writers at the best newspaper in the country are habitual offenders.
If condemning something someone said about Ferguson because it "set off a torrent of criticism on social media" is the standard, you are going to have a lot more editorials to write.
I would also like to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading R.L. Nave's take on this issue. It's nice to have someone local, with a voice I recognize, to give some perspective.
tstauffer 9 years, 8 months ago
So you agree that the characterization in this particular piece was "particularly inappropriate" but then you criticize its use as an example? I'm not sure that makes sense. And I don't see anything in the editorial that criticizes the NYTimes' body of work on Ferguson.
If condemning something someone said about Ferguson because it "set off a torrent of criticism on social media" is the standard, you are going to have a lot more editorials to write.
And if you take one part of an editorial and argue fallaciously from the specific to the general, you've got a lot of Internet commenting to do. :)
js1976 9 years, 8 months ago
So far I have yet to read any credible sources stating the actual injuries sustained by Officer Wilson. CNN claims they have information that his eye socket was not fractured, but it is also from an anonymous source.
I would have to say I agree with Todd 100%. I personally don't believe I've been given enough information to pass judgement on this case and the major news outlets should act more responsibly when broadcasting information from uncredible sources.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
I agree with that, js. We don't know for sure what injuries the officer sustained, although we have seen the video of him not looking all that hurt standing near Mr. Brown's body (which was lying there for four hours). And I have a sneaking suspicion that the police would have announced already that Mr. Wilson was hurt that badly if he was, considering the other stuff they were selectively leaking. But I could be wrong about that. The point is that we don't know for sure what, if any, injuries Mr. Wilson had. But we do know that Mr. Brown was shot multiple times and left in the street for four hours for residents to look at, and that he did not have a weapon.
And I agree with Todd. Why would anyone be asking if this case if Brown was "innocent"? The question is clearly whether the officer responded excessively to whatever Brown was doing. Attempts to smear either man's character is just a side show.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
CNN is much more likely to be correct than the political blogger who throws a lot of trash because they do have attorneys that must know the sources before they can attribute an anonymous source. I studied media law under the then-main-legal counsel for CNN at Columbia, and she was outstanding.
That said, we still don't know for sure.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
THCleve, I didn't write this editorial, but to me there is no better example than The New York Times. If they can screw this up like that (http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com...">which they've admitted), then imagine what others with lesser standards will do, as we see in the metro area all the time. Of course they were trying to cast Mr. Brown in a "human" light, but that doesn't mean they did it successfully by characterizing with the cliché "no angel," which is lazy writing to boot. (And the best human stories show, not tell, with narrative and allow readers to make up their own minds.)
In this case, thankfully, it was met with a torrent of criticism, in social media and beyond, largely by African Americans who are sick and tired of media being so careless when reporting about black Americans, not to mention those who make apologies for them.
And, obviously, the standard for judging offensive reporting can never be, "Well, we've done it better in the past." It is a teachable moment for all media, and especially white reporters, if they will bother to listen without defensiveness. (The reporter who wrote "angel" was black, which doesn't change the standard.)
When I was in NYC writing for the Village Voice, I covered a project based in the Bronx where a group of young people did a media-literacy project on how the media covered youth, and especially youth of color. They intentionally chose the Times because it wasn't thought of as one of the worse ones. And it did terribly, including on how they presented accused young people of color in a more negative light then how they presented white kids (in graduation gowns or what not), as well as having far fewer positive stories on young people (of color) than negative ones.
No surprise really. But the real kicker is that the young people asked for a meeting with the NYT metro editor (Jonathan Landman, at the time), and he was very defensive and dismissive of them as they presented their findings. Those kids were probably left with a worse taste for the Times at the end of the meeting than they had before, precisely because media are so quick to make excuses for their blind spots. We all have them, and we should all seek them out and try to do something about them. But, sadly, that takes more effort than many journalists actually want to put into the profession.
So we're left with "no angel" on the day that Mr. Brown was buried. Talk about no situational and cultural awareness.
THClevel0321 9 years, 8 months ago
I just thought there were better examples out there than the Times.
Maybe you should change the title to "Editorial Board of Jackson Free Press tells New York Times How To Cover National News" with the tagline "Smart Aleck responds to reasonable response like a baby"
tstauffer 9 years, 8 months ago
Mr. THC: I apologize. I incorrectly assumed you could handle a little sarcasm, since you were employing it yourself. (I even used a smiley face!) My bad.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
Ha, we also told them how they should be reporting on the Iraq War as it started, instead of spreading the yellowcake lies, and they didn't listen then, either. The rest is history, as is Judy Miller. ;-)
THClevel0321 9 years, 8 months ago
And I meant that last post at Todd, not Donna, who responded like an adult
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
P.S. I, too, like and often respect The New York Times, but I am reminded that Victor Navasky, my opinion-writing professor in graduate school (where most students salivated over working for the Times while I didn't want to), was very critical of the Times in our classes even as he brought his editor friends from there in to speak with us and was clearly well-respected over there himself. This kind of self-examination within media is healthy and vital to our communities. Otherwise, we're just under-paid stenographers who won't make a mark with our work. I suspect the Times can take it. ;-)
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
To Todd's defense, his response to you was right on. Your argument didn't make sense, and his snark responded directly to your snark, which he posted right above it. It's hard to argue that's out of line when you set the tone yourself.
Otherwise, our conversations here tend to be pretty direct, and we do debate and point out fallacies (and have ours pointed out) but try to refrain from ad hominems and derailing conversations complaining about who's being snarkier. You're welcome to participate, but you might bring a slighter tougher skin to the game.
THClevel0321 9 years, 8 months ago
I have clearly made the mistake of thinking it was possible to talk reasonably with either of you. I won't make the same mistake again, but that doesn't change the fact that this editorial dismisses 99.9 percent of the coverage the NYT has given to Ferguson.
tstauffer 9 years, 8 months ago
but that doesn't change the fact that this editorial dismisses 99.9 percent of the coverage the NYT has given to Ferguson.
Except that it doesn't. It uses that specific example to make a broader point.
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
(My last comment on this tangent is that I've rather enjoyed the reversal of someone telling on Todd to me rather than the other way around. It's funny how often someone will try to get me in trouble with him for responding too directly, sounding like a b*tch, calling out a fallacy or such. He and I are both always amused when people assume that the male partner is the boss of the female one in such scenarios—and saddened when it's clear that many people want to hold the woman to a different standard. For the record, we're equal partners, and don't need each other's permission to post our thoughts on our website. We're both adults with full control of our own voices. I highly recommend that arrangement to others. Feminist sermon over now. ;-)
donnaladd 9 years, 8 months ago
More on the Times' #NoAngel http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire...">problem from Talking Points Memo.
Again: It's a teachable moment for media willing to learn from it.
Of course, I wish more had learned from the media's role in the riots of the 1960s:
Search for http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/d...">Chapter 15 in the Kerner Commission (summary) report here. It starts: Chapter 15--The News Media and the Disorders In his charge to the Commission, the President asked: "What effect do the mass media have on the riots?" The Commission determined that the answer to the President's question did not lie solely in the performance of the press and broadcasters in reporting the riots. Our analysis had to consider also the overall treatment by the media of the Negro ghettos, community relations, racial attitudes, and poverty-day by day and month by month, year in and year out. A wide range of interviews with government officials, law enforcement authorities, media personnel and other citizens, including ghetto residents, as well as a quantitative analysis of riot coverage and a special conference with industry representatives, leads us to conclude that: Despite instances of sensationalism, inaccuracy and distortion, newspapers, radio and television tried on the whole to give a balanced, factual account of the 1967 disorders. Elements of the news media failed to portray accurately the scale and character of the violence that occurred last summer. The overall effect was, we believe, an exaggeration of both mood and event. . * Important segments of the media failed to report adequately on the causes and consequences of civil disorders and on the underlying problems of race relations. They have not communicated to the majority of their audience--which is white—a sense of the degradation, misery and hopelessness of life in the ghetto. These failings must be corrected, and the improvement must come from within the industry. Freedom of the press is not the issue. Any effort to impose governmental restrictions would be inconsistent with fundamental constitutional precepts. We have seen evidence that the news media are becoming aware of and concerned about their performance in this field. As that concern grows, coverage will improve. But much more must be done, and it must be done soon.
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