Media and Racial Violence

This article details how Black people and their actions were negatively portrayed in the media, with positive stories being rarely reported and violence against whites making the front page. Often, crimes with Black assailants were described in dramatic detail with much misinformation to get a rise out of White people, leading to acts of racial violence. Would there be fewer lynchings if Black people were shown differently in the media, or would these acts of violence still feel justified?

In this article, modern-day Southern newspapers apologize to the public for their role in perpetuating racial violence in the mid-1900s. They admitted to often dramatizing and villainizing Black people in the media, which usually resulted in violent acts and harsh sentences against them. Do you think these apologies make up for the years of suffering from misinformation spread by these companies?

This article describes the media's role in perpetrating the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 by villainizing a Black teenager who allegedly assaulted a white teenage girl in an elevator. The boy stated that he had only stepped on her foot accidentally, but the Tulsa Tribune published a front-page story that essentially accused him of attempted rape. After this story was published, hundreds of Black residents were killed in the massacre. If his story was published, do you think the riot would've happened?

In this article, the author details how journalists have historically instigated the inferiority of Black Americans and racial violence, from slavery to mob lynchings. In one lynching instance in 1914, a newspaper published an article stating that "unknown persons" tied a Black murder suspect to the back of a car and dragged him to death. Here, we can see how newspapers also took part in the "system of complicity". If media held people accountable for violence, would they have happened as often?

This article investigates multiple aspects of the media's role in instigating racial violence. In one example, they discuss how lynchings were viewed and portrayed in the media as "justice". In one lynching case, the newspaper defended his killing, stating that there was no racial prejudice involved. By denying the obvious racism that is embedded in violence in the South, what are some ways that newspaper companies can be held accountable for their role in this system?