Article Critique:
Ferguson Shooting Spurs Curriculum Advocates to Craft Lessons on Race
By: Cicada Hoyt
Journalism I
September 2, 2014
The article Ferguson
Shooting Spurs Curriculum Advocates to Craft Lessons on Race [1] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/08/30/ferguson-shooting-spurs-curriculum-advocates-to-craft-lesson-on-race/violates at least four of the standards of the 9 principles and 7 yardsticks
of journalism: Enterprise, explanation, watchdog and inclusive. The reason I
believe this is because of the reasons provided.
This report also violates the “explanation” yardstick because the reporter only said what happened
and not why it happened. For example he could’ve explained about what had happened
with the shooting and after the shooting. The cop shot an unarmed man, not once
but at least six times, including twice in the head. Also Michael Brown’s body
laid in the street after the shooting for four hours in the intense heat and it
was not covered up. With a simple Google search I found all this evidence and I
wasn’t even at the scene. Perhaps if the reporters reported the facts they wouldn’t
have been so quick to judge these “angry protesters.”
The reporter states, “Even though the police shooting of an
unarmed man in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson is only weeks old and a grand
jury is still trying to sort out what really happened, a Washington-based
nonprofit is offering a classroom lesson plan that draws a link between the
incident and the revolutionary rhetoric of the 1960s Black Panther Party.” This
lead in sentence to the article violates the 8th principle “inclusive.” The reporter is minimizing
the event and insinuating that the event is too “young” to be the centerpiece
of a curriculum. I fail to see the evidence as to why the event is too “young.”
The reporter could have explained why he chose to use this term. The reporter is injecting his or her bias, implying the Ferguson events are not yet "ready for prime time," so as that the reader is not left to come to his or her own
conclusion.
Then the reporter goes on to use the term “revolutionary rhetoric of the 1960s
Black Panther Party.” They are comparing the spontaneous upwelling of emotion
from citizens who have clearly endured many years of police harassment and
other racism with an organized group of citizens with a complex history, that
happened 50 years ago in a completely different society, era and context. The reporter is minimizing the value of the event by telling the reader it is
too soon to talk about in our schools, and then blowing up the event by utilizing inflammatory words such as
“revolutionary” and “rhetoric” to describe the Black Panthers. If the reporter
would have used a stock photo he/she could’ve portrayed the other side of what
the Black Panther party really stood for.
Charles Bursey
serving children at Black Panther free breakfast program, Oakland 1968.
The reporter goes on to state that the Governor Jay Nixon of
Missouri called in the National Guard to “restore order.” This violates the 2nd
principle “Loyalty.” The reporter is showing loyalty to the police and stating
that the National Guard was going to “restore order” because the citizens Ferguson
are the ones who are causing trouble, clearly not calling for the ones using
tear gas and other violence to be brought to order. They seem to come to a
biased conclusion that the citizens are the only ones out of order but one
could argue than the police are the ones that need to be brought to order. What the reporter could have done is to give the citizens the same amount of coverage as the police department.
I question what type of “order” the reporter is asking to
restore. There are multiple previous accounts of the police utilizing tactics
of what could only be termed racist and provoking of violence. One example is the Chief of Police of St.
Louis County (home county of Ferguson) directing his officers to go have a “Black
out day.” The chief told his officers to make the jail cells more “colorful.”[2] http://nextnewsnetwork.com/news/lets-have-a-black-day-police-profiling-in-st-louis/. Perhaps
the order they are speaking of is that of police harassment and racial
profiling (more than 86% of all stops and 92% of searches are of African Americans
when they make up 67% of the population)? [3] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/how-much-racial-profiling-happens-in-ferguson/378606/.
Finally I question whether this journalist was being the
type of watchdog (the 5th principle
of journalism) that was necessary for this type of incident. In particular why
was he not keeping an eye on the police? A picture speaks a thousand words.
A Portrait
of Power in Ferguson, Missouri: A Heavily Armed S.W.A.T. Team is
"Threatened" by an Unarmed Black Man Walking Down the Street in Ferguson, Missouri, August 12th, 2014.
In conclusion the article from Fox News was a very biased
and unfair article. The reporter violated at least four of the nine principles
and seven yardsticks of journalism: Enterprise, explanation, watchdog and
inclusive. After this critique, I will think twice before using Fox News as a
reliable source of news.
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