In the world of news reporting and black people being killed by cops, you can be certain about one thing: Mainstream news outlets seem to find a way to further victimize and show their biases through the images they use of the victims.
Last year, after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., #IfTheyGunnedMeDown proved that the narrative the media continue to portray regarding black people isn’t always truthful. People on Twitter posted photos of what they would like the media to use of them if they were killed, alongside the photo that the media would probably use instead.
https://twitter.com/CJLawrenceEsq/status/498537843170353152
On Wednesday, NBC, CNN and other major news outlets proved that point exactly with the reporting on the gunning down of Samuel Dubose by University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing. The news outlets juxtaposed a photo of Tensing posing in front of a flag in his officer’s uniform with a mug shot of Dubose.
Many people questioned why Tensing, someone who was just charged with murder, would be pictured as patriotic, while Dubose, the victim, would be portrayed using a prior mug shot?
https://twitter.com/NappyMetanoia/status/626470151102308352https://twitter.com/_KTesq/status/626481598452510720https://twitter.com/BeckyGMartinez/status/626479176405655552https://twitter.com/KimmieDeez/status/626464564960473090https://twitter.com/posydozy/status/626463502044123136
Whether implicit or not, CNN and their cohorts further victimized Dubose. It’s not as if there weren’t other photos that could have been used. Dubose’s previous issue with the law, which resulted in the mug shot, had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was gunned down by Tensing, a campus police officer.
The sad thing is that no matter how many times the media are called out on issues like this, they’ll continue to not give a damn about the narrative they want to portray.