Brianna Smith
bs214517@ohio.edu
The pandemic has magnified the problems that this country always had. The biggest thing that was brought into the light was a clear divide revolving around police violence and Black Lives Matter. The presidential race furthered this divide and made it even more political. Biden stands behind the BLM movement while Trump calls them a terrorist group.
Throughout this year I've found myself questioning how our country is so divided. Was other people not seeing the same things I was seeing? I later found out the answer to that question is no . . . not really.
Left and Right wingers have their own media outlets, news channels, and social media algorithms. This means if you're a liberal, it's difficult to find information supporting conservatives and vice versa. For example, Tyler Fisher wrote a wonderful piece speaking on the Charlottesville protest that you can find here.
Fisher's article shows how the left side and right reported on the same protest. The difference was telling. Both were very biased and one could even say misleading.
This brings us to the question, "how do journalist report on racial injustice correctly?". Rachael Glickhouse wrote about this in her piece titled "What We Discovered During a Year of Documenting Hate" (access here). Here she spoke on how most journalist don't even report their hate crime findings to the FBI. She said, "We were told early on that while the law required the Department of Justice to report hate crime statistics, local and state police departments aren’t bound to report their numbers to the FBI — and many don't".
She also reported on how many police officers don't even know how to handle hate crimes if they do end up reporting the incident.
This leads us to 5 things to remember while reporting on racial injustice.
1. Make sure you're not using misleading titles and promoting false narratives
2. Include all details given to ensure personal bias is not shining through your piece.
3. ALWAYS report the hate crimes you speak on to the FBI
4. Remember you're writing on a sensitive topic and that kind language will always be appreciated
5. Stick to your ethical code regardless of what's being asked of you
Reporting on hate crimes will always be scary due to how important it is. But like I said its so, so, important! Use the media to help spread the unbiased truth for once. Peoples life are literally depending on it!
I enjoyed your post! Your right about the topic of racial injustice because of how important it is. You're also correct about how we have to be careful about how we report it, we need to make sure we are 100% truthful when we report it. We must not make assumptions when talking about such an important topic and what could literally change someones life. However, when we do see racial injustice, we must put a stop to it and properly report it.
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