Articles Worded to Feed Hate
According to a report from CBS News, “Gov. Jay Nixon is ordering the Missouri National Guard to begin withdrawing from Ferguson, where nightly scenes of unrest have erupted since a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed black 18-year-old.” With just the wording of that last sentence not only has the media tried and convicted the police officer in question, but also managed to feed into a racial rage that has destroyed a whole town and led to martial law.
In another post, this one from FOX, Attorney General Eric Holder stated that he “understands why many black Americans distrust the police as he made a one-day swing through the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo., where a black teenager was fatally shot by a white police officer almost two weeks earlier.” In one sentence, hatred for others based on race, and distrust of police officers by a certain race were both encouraged. There were several more, such as a post by The Guardian, The New York Times, and more.
And no, it is not just the white-on-black crime stories that are used to stir up racial tension. Even when a black cop kills a white man, the media uses racism to score views. Both sides of this coin are guilty of pushing hate to increase ratings.
A post by the Boston Globe not only supports the racism angle, but suggests that the entire catastrophe occurred simply because Michael Brown was black, and that “White America” simply didn’t care. In this post, the writer states, “on those fatal split seconds when police see black men as violent criminals rather than citizens. Ferguson raises anew the question of how many more unarmed black men must die before the nation declares this an all-American problem. As unjustified as the Aug. 9 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown was, and as much as it has dominated the news, white America has barely shrugged its shoulders.” Unjustified? Let’s just see.
How Did This All Start?
There are many different versions of what ensued between Officer Darren Wilson and 18 year old Michael. Since the initial accounts in which the media loudly proclaimed the races of the two and suggested that a cop shot an innocent boy, it has been released that Brown was allegedly involved in a robbery prior to the shooting, that he had drugs in his system, that he tried to take the cop’s gun, and that Officer Darren Wilson had an orbital fracture from the “scuffle” with Brown, causing him to shoot in self-defense. Perhaps if these stories had been the focus of the media, instead of race-baiting, the entire town of Ferguson could have been saved a lot of trouble. After all, even Boston.com admits that there are a lot of police killings which occur in the US, but only Ferguson is the one which exploded recently.
Freedom of the Press
Ferguson was a media circus like non other…well, since the Zimmerman case with all it’s media-stirred hype. When did the duty of the media switch from informing the public of the truth to spinning the story in any way possible to gain the most views? Or has this always been so? How many people have died, how many store owners will lose everything due to the damages of looting, how many Americans will allow themselves to be led into hate before the media stops its sensationalism. Or worse yet, will the results of such irresponsible reporting eventually lead to our first amendment rights being taken away completely.
In the midst of such chaos, many fear that the government will use the situations to invoke marshal law and take our freedoms. And yet, despite that fear, the citizens make it necessary. Is the media going to do the same, biting off its own nose to spite its face? Abuse of our constitutional rights can and will result in them being taken away. Perhaps the media needs to think on this before blasting the world with scorching, big, bold-printed headlines designed to stir up hate.
