The mainstream US media are facing criticism over their coverage of unrest in Baltimore. Activists and residents claim the media ignored peaceful marches, focused on labels and violence, and ignored the chronic issues of poverty and police misconduct.
Protesters shouted down Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera, who arrived in
Baltimore shortly before the curfew on Tuesday. They blocked his
camera and accused Fox News of lying and “false coverage.”
Maryland state legislator Catherine Pugh helped extract the angry
and flustered Rivera from the crowd.
Fox and other networks were accused of ignoring the peaceful
marches and gatherings that were previously protesting the death
of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray in police custody. Gray’s
spine was severed under unexplained circumstances and he passed
away earlier this month.
“When we were out here protesting all last week for six days
straight peacefully, there were no news cameras, there were no
helicopters, there was no riot gear, and nobody heard us,”
protester Danielle Williams told MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts on
Tuesday. “So now that we’ve burned down buildings and set
businesses on fire and looted buildings, now all of the sudden
everybody wants to hear us.”
During an interview with msnbc’s Thomas Roberts, Baltimore
protester Danielle Williams had a great question for…
http://t.co/z5QeaCdJd2
— Andrea Portes (@andrea_portes) April
29, 2015
Fox News host Shepard Smith, speaking on “The Five,” also pointed
out that the media has ignored Baltimore’s chronic issues,
including the Gray affair.
“We’ve got a major American city that has decades – decades –
of turmoil within this neighborhood,” Smith said. “One
quarter of the youth locked up. Clearly there is a big problem.
Then all of a sudden, an African-American man is taken into a
vehicle, and he comes out of it and dies – and you get nothing
from authorities except a suspension. And those who would do harm
take an opportunity to do harm. And here we are.”
Ferguson community organizer Deray McKesson called out CNN host
Wolf Blitzer for pushing him to denounce violence. McKesson said
that the real perpetrators of violence had been the police around
the US, who have killed over 300 people just this year.
“You are suggesting broken windows are worse than broken
spines” Activist Destroys @CNN‘s Blitzer http://t.co/ByUBlkMydl #baltimoreriots
— Ben Swann (@BenSwann_) April
29, 2015
“We’re not making
comparisons, obviously,” Blitzer replied. “I just want
to hear you say there should be peaceful protests, not violent
protests, in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther
King?”
“You are making a comparison,” McKesson said. “You
are suggesting this idea that broken windows are worse than
broken spines, right? … Freddie Gray will never be back. Those
windows will.”
McKesson also criticized city officials for calling black people
“thugs.” Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was
the first to use the term, describing the rioters as such at a
press conference on Monday evening. She later tried to walk it
back.
I wanted to clarify my comments on “thugs.” When you speak out
of frustration and anger, one can say things in a way that you
don’t mean.
— Mayor Rawlings-Blake (@MayorSRB) April
29, 2015
City Councilman Carl Stokes was exasperated by CNN host Erin
Burnett’s use of the word.
“No, it’s not the right word to call our children
‘thugs,’” Stokes said. “These are children who have been
set aside, marginalized, who have not been engaged by us.”
“But how does that justify what they did?” Burnett
pressed. “That’s a sense of right and wrong. They know it’s
wrong to steal and burn down a CVS and an old persons’ home. I
mean, come on.”
“Come on?! Just call them n*ggers. Just call them
n*ggers,” Stokes replied. “When you say, ‘Come on,’ come
on what?”
Carl Stokes to CNN’s Erin Burnett: Thugs? Just call them
N#ggers then… http://t.co/fwCXo2mZmW pic.twitter.com/S6R4yczSps
— Daily Kos (@dailykos) April
29, 2015
Comedy host Jon Stewart also took issue with the media coverage
of Baltimore unrest, singling out CNN’s Wolf Blitzer’s statement
that Monday’s imagery was “hard to believe.”
“Elvis leading a herd of orthodox Jewish unicorns through a
city street – that would be hard to believe,” Stewart chided
Blitzer in Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Show. “Ferguson was
just a few months ago, and you were talking about it.”
American cities, Stewart said, appear to have only two states:
normal and “on fire.”
“Maybe a more nuanced alert system could allow for more
productive intervention beyond, ‘You have 10 seconds to
disperse,’” Stewart argued. “Or we could agree to keep
ignoring the roots of how systemically, historically
disenfranchised many African-American communities still are, only
paying attention to them when their periodic fiery ball of anger
threatens to enter our airspace like some kind of Alex Haley’s
comet. And once again breathing a blissful sigh of forgetful
relief when it’s another near-miss.”
Meanwhile, Baltimore teachers and students complained to Mother Jones magazine that the official story
about a planned “purge” was a fabrication. Baltimore
police deployed officers in riot gear at the Mondawmin Mall in
northwestern Baltimore on Monday afternoon, claiming that social
media chatter was calling for a riot inspired by “The Purge,” a
2013 film about a world where all laws are suspended for a day.
With the major transportation hub for high school students
closed, hundreds of teens were stranded at Mondawmin and, at some
point, clashes with the police began. However, no evidence of
social media posts calling for a “purge” has ever been produced.
Odd. With all the references for a so-call “purge” on in
Baltimore that not one media source has produced a shred of
supporting evidence.
— L.O. (@Harlemism) April
28, 2015