1/

Two very different stories coming out today about the death of Walter Wallace. Different kinds of information are sticking out to different people.

Red=salient to the right
Blue= salient to the left

2/ Even if you just take 1 color, it builds a kind of porto-narrative.

For example, Blue:

"who had his gun drawn…officer with his gun drawn…Wallace’s mother was behind Wallace…officers shot multiple times…his mother ran screaming over to Wallace with her hands in the air."

3/ If that's all you had to work with, it sounds like a man was murdered by police in front of his mother.

4/ But red, on the other hand:

"was walking towards an officer…began walking towards another… “put the knife down”… “back up”…The officer backed up…Wallace followed him… “put the knife down.”

If that's all you had, it sounds like Wallace was charging officers with a knife

5/ Different information sticks out to different folks depending on their socio-cultural-political background. And then when they go to recount that story, that's the information they emphasize.

Iterate that process and divergent narratives will emerge from the exact same source

6/6
And if you want to read more on this, you can find @NarrativesProj's full breakdown here: https://narrativesproject.com/p/the-death-of-walter-wallace-jr