Column: The media inflames rather than informs

Let’s say I spend most of an afternoon drinking and smoking pot. Then I get into a car, crash it in a quiet neighborhood at 2:30 a.m. and start pounding on a random person’s door, prompting the police to be called.

When the police arrive, I charge at one of the officers pointing a gun. Even though I am unarmed, I would consider it a miracle to escape serious harm, let alone stay alive.

This happened in Charlotte in a highly publicized case that recently resulted in a mistrial of the officer who shot and killed a man for doing what I described above. I would expect if this scenario happened to me that there would be no outcry for justice. People wouldn’t protest my death. They would call me stupid for my actions and probably nominate me for a Darwin Award.

But that’s because I wouldn’t have some hook for the media to latch onto.

I hate to keep harping on the influence the media has, but it does seem to incite and inflame conflict in many cases. The case in Charlotte is usually reported as “an unarmed black man being killed by a white officer.” The news stories almost always showed the officer’s mugshot while showing the deceased from years ago in a football jersey or playing the violin.

The media should not be in the business of influencing emotions. When Michael Brown was killed by a white officer, the coverage repeatedly showed photos from years prior of him smiling and looking innocent, while the officer was shown in a steely service photo.

The media slants these stories and then will run follow-up vignettes asking “How can we repair race relations?” One way would be to not make everything about race. Running interviews with the victim’s family about how an innocent man was killed in cold blood and that the only justice would be a conviction of the police officer doesn’t help.

I wonder how many of you would think of me as innocent if I crashed a car while intoxicated in the wee hours of the morning and charged at an officer. How many vigils would you hold? I have some cute fourth grade photos where I’m sporting a bowl cut, but somehow I think they’d show me in a white tank top with Cheetos stains on it.

It would be refreshing if news was reported rather than influenced. For those who say it wasn’t, I’d ask why it took a trial to learn the deceased charged an officer while drunk and high? The reporters were too busy scouring for old football pictures, perhaps.

This story was originally published August 31, 2015 at 10:52 AM with the headline "Column: The media inflames rather than informs."