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Media scholars say that the way the US press covered protests changed in the summer of 1968, when Chicago cops turned the same violence on reporters that had previously been meted out to demonstrators.
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Finally, the press began to speak frankly and accurately about the source of violence, that it came from enraged, armed cops who acted with impunity to visit cruel violence upon protesters.
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During the current uprising, press accounts have located violence with demonstrators, using terms like "clash" that implied that protesters had come out to do battle with the police.
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/its-time-to-change-the-way-the-media-reports-on-protests-here-are-some-ideas/
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https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/its-time-to-change-the-way-the-media-reports-on-protests-here-are-some-ideas/
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National press lead with headlines like "A night of fire and fury across America as protests intensify" (Washpo) and "Appeals for calm as sprawling protests threaten to spiral out of control" (NYT).
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As @KendraWrites writes for @NiemanLab, this carries on the long tradition of focusing on "annoyance" factors from protests, rather than protest as a means "to publicize grievances from people who typically exist outside of traditional power structures."
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At the most absurd end of the spectrum are headlines like @wusa9's "Pepper spray caused a short stampede in Lafayette Park during a peaceful march honoring George Floyd" - as though pepper spray occurred without any human intervention.
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In @AskAKorean's excellent history of Korea's successful, government-changing protests, they describe the process by which "violent" protests became "peaceful" protests: what changed was that the police stopped beating people up.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/03/white-nationalist-pogrom/#evidence
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https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/03/white-nationalist-pogrom/#evidence
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That change occurred when the less-favored groups who'd led the protests in the face of unrestrained police violence (workers and students) were joined on the lines by members of favored groups (wealthy professionals), whom the police couldn't beat and kill with impunity.
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What brought them out? Largely the same factors that changed the dynamic in the US in 68: a shift in how the press apportioned responsibility for violence at demonstrations, from the people airing grievances to the armed public officials who hit, tortured and killed them.
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That shift is starting today. It started with the headline on @MatthewDessem's @Slate story: "Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide."
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/george-floyd-protests-police-violence.html
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https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/george-floyd-protests-police-violence.html
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Other publications took cues from Slate: @ZoeSchiffer's @Verge article ran under the headline:
"The protest was peaceful — then the cops arrived"
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21278285/peaceful-protest-oakland-george-floyd-police-violence-tear-gas
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"The protest was peaceful — then the cops arrived"
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21278285/peaceful-protest-oakland-george-floyd-police-violence-tear-gas
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Pierre-Louis sets out a slate of recommendations for press coverage of protests:
* Address selection bias: years of underreporting of #BlackLivesMatter
can make the protests seem sudden, but they're not - they represent an evolution in a large, well-organized movement
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* Address selection bias: years of underreporting of #BlackLivesMatter
can make the protests seem sudden, but they're not - they represent an evolution in a large, well-organized movement12/
* Mind how extreme protests capture disproportionate attention: the armed maniacs who stormed state capitals demanding an end to lockdown are fringe elements and unrepresentative of the national view
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* Excise the passive voice: not "police-involved shooting" - rather, "the police shot someone"
* Watch for framing: "Peaceful protest" suggests that most protests aren't peaceful; "unarmed Black man" suggests that the default is "armed"
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* Watch for framing: "Peaceful protest" suggests that most protests aren't peaceful; "unarmed Black man" suggests that the default is "armed"
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* Confront racism: protests over racial discrimination and violence are legitimate; start your coverage with the grievance the protesters came to air, not how long traffic was held up for
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The best of the quotes in Pierre-Louis's piece come from U Minnesota journalism prof @danikathleen, who I just added to my follows on Twitter.
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