Protesting the Protests: How journalists' coverage can influence the movement

 By: KATY SNODGRASS 

ks439219@ohio.edu

Members of Economic Freedom Fighters protest George Floyd's death from Sandton, South Africa. Source: https://www.npr.org

The year 2020 seemed to have consistently brought consecutive tragedy after tragedy. As the world scrambled to reckon with the COVID-19 virus, a new deadly issue surfaced in the United States that summer. And it all started with the filming of one man's untimely death, George Floyd. How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody

The New York Times reported Floyd's death due to being arrested on May 25, 2020, after a phone call to the police accused Floyd of purchasing cigarettes with a counterfeit bill. According to their reports, less than 20 minutes after the first police officer arrived, Floyd was unresponsive on the ground while three officers pinned him.  

The article goes on into more details about Floyd's death as controversies started to rise alongside the bystander footage taken of the officer's interaction with Floyd. The language used is direct, blatant, and honest in their retelling of the events that day, even in the headline. 

That differs from their coverage of the many protests that occurred following Floyd's death, as more emotive or biased choices of words were chosen. Throughout their headlines, The New York Times describes the protests as flaring tensions, heated confrontations, and a potential danger to watch out for. 

However, this is not an issue isolated to just The New York Times, as countless news sources made editorial decisions that aligned with the protest paradigm. For example, according to the Columbia Journal Review, news sources delegitimize anti-racism protests by protecting the police, government, and judicial systems by uplifting their experiences as fact. 

Unraveling the Protest Paradigm

While the media is not necessarily following the protest paradigm maliciously or even on purpose, it is still causing harm to the more significant movement behind the protests and its reputation. For example, the press coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests being reported as violent riots causing cities to burn down fails to dig deeper into why the protest is even happening. 

Thus, the protest paradigm shines a light on the already well-established issue of a lack of diversity in newsrooms. The Columbia Journal Review states that "the institutions that sustain journalism's culture tend to be extremely white; Journalism's norms and routines...are viewed primarily through a white gaze." (Brown). 

To combat the protest paradigm's issues, it is dire that journalism's culture and make-up must make swift and radical changes.