Week 2- The Media and Their Coverage of Black Lives Matter

Week 2

The Media and Their Coverage of Black Lives Matter

As riots and protests continue nationwide, the media plays a unique role in the movement. Without media coverage, these events would not receive as much attention and most likely would not be as effective. Consequently, the portrayal which the media chooses also plays a major role in the movement. Recently, the media has been under scrutiny for their lack of coverage of peaceful protests. It appears that media outlets nationwide focus on violent riots rather than the true meaning on the movement. 

Interestingly, this has been an issue for many years. In January of 2016, Vox posted an article entitled "Media Coverage of Protests Sure Looks Different when Demonstrators are White." I personally found this article both very interesting and eyeopening. While white protestors are often described with the words "peaceful" and "demonstrators", black protestors are called "violent" and "thugs", even by our own President. Additionally, while the violent portions of Black Lives Matter protests are front page news, the violent protests of white counterparts are often hard to even find as seen in the image from Fox News below. 

The racial discrepancy between the coverage which white and black protesters receive is one which I believe is not only in an effort to see ratings grow, but one which is ethically and morally wrong. It is vital that media outlets focus on the messages of protests and inform the public rather than using their platforms to push a partisan agenda which should be trumped by the call for equality.