In the past few days, many of us have taken to the open Internet to express our outrage over the killing of yet another unarmed black teen: 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Text: Mary Alice Crim
From the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown to the Essence article “How the Media Missed the Mark in Coverage of Michael Brown’s Killing, ” folks are highlighting the detrimental impact pervasive media representations of young black men and women have on their lives.
The Essence piece calls for better, deeper reporting to probe the story further, examine the context and demand information about the circumstances surrounding Brown’s death. Ferguson police haven’t made that kind of reporting easy: They harassed and arrested two reporters who were on the ground Wednesday night doing just that kind of hard work.