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How News Media Fuels the Myth of Black Crime
Youre not just imagining things. The local news medias intense focus on violent crime is also deeply racialized, at least if New York Citys media market is indicative of national trends.
Media Matters reviewed the 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. broadcasts of four New York-area stations over the course of this summer and compared their crime stories to arrest data from the New York Police Department. In a report released Aug. 26, the watchdog group found black suspects in crime stories far outweigh their actual representation in arrestswhich is saying something, since we also know arrests themselves are racially skewed, with black people representing far more arrests for, say, marijuana possession than drug-use rates suggest is appropriate.
The disparity in crime coverage was most striking for stories about theft. In local news-land, 80 percent of suspects in New York-area thefts are black, Media Matters found. In real life, blacks represent 55 percent of NYPDs arrests for theft. For assaults, TV-land sees 72 percent of suspects as black. Real life: 49 percent.
This reality skewing coverage is part of how black bodies become synonymous with crime and dangerand helps justify the violence and danger the state then reigns down upon peolpe like Michael Brown and Eric Garner. But the news medias skewed racial reality doesnt end with crime.
http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/08/how_news_media_fuels_the_myth_of_black_crime.html
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How News Media Fuels the Myth of Black Crime (Original Post)
UrbScotty
Aug 2014
OP
When you're a Minority in the US, you're Guilty until proven Innocent (and sometimes, not even then)
blkmusclmachine
Aug 2014
#3
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)1. And they've been doing it for a very long time. nt
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)2. Excellent read.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)3. When you're a Minority in the US, you're Guilty until proven Innocent (and sometimes, not even then)
Herself
(185 posts)4. South Carolina skews the criminal reports too. High reporting on black
arrests, lower on white, but it isn't accurate representation of the "race" of criminals here.
I'm leaving SC Tuesday, I can't wait to get my Yankee ass back to NY.
Judi Lynn
(160,228 posts)5. Thanks! K & R. n/t