Black Lives Matter and the Reporting of Violence in the Media.

Speaking to Fox News on January 6th, Raymond Arroyo argued that the “leftist media” has only just “woken up” to the threat of “mob violence”. He suggested that it was too sympathetic in its reportage of the Black Lives Matter protests last year.1 Arroyo then stated that the media has been selective with its indignation of violence and that the media wrongly justified the Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder as patriotic. He went on to say the media is saying that “everybody needs to be shot on sight” when no such remarks had been made.

Leftist media is instead focusing their attention on the discrepancies between Trump’s reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests and his support and “love”2 for his followers in the Capitol building.3 Moreover, they are highlighting inconsistencies in Trump labelling ANTIFA a domestic terror organisation but categorising MAGA protestors as faithful and honourable. Also, accusing leftist media of misusing “patriotic” ironically mirrors Trump’s now-deleted tweets, in which he honoured his supporters as “great patriots”. Twitter has since deleted Trump’s violence-inciting tweets before permanently suspending his Twitter account, raising issues about First Amendment right to free speech.

Photographic evidence of the Capitol steps littered with military officials last June, is in great contrast to the handful of guards trying to keep back the forerunning MAGA demonstrators. Comparing the police response to the majority black-leftist social actors and to right-wing majority-white social actors perhaps shows racial disparity.4 Leftist media has not claimed that all involved this week should be shot on sight, but rather, Black Lives Matter demonstrators never should have been subject to fatal militaristic governance in the first place. Media outlets are calling for pacification, rather than repetition of the same level of violence performed by police in June.

By Becca Wells.

Bibliography.

[1] Fox News, Media has selectively shown indignation towards violence: Raymond Arroyo (January 2021) <https://video.foxnews.com/v/6220971886001#sp=show-clips> [accessed 15 January 2021].

2 Natasha Jokic, ‘16 Twitter Reactions To Trump's Video To Rioters Saying "Go Home, We Love You"’, Buzz Feed, (January 2021) <https://www.buzzfeed.com/natashajokic1/trump-riot-election-video-reaction> [accessed 15 January 2021]

3 Tommy Beer, ‘Trump Called BLM Protesters ‘Thugs’ But Capitol – Storming Supporters ‘Very Special’’, Forbes, (January 2021) <https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/01/06/trump-called-blm-protesters-thugs-but-capitol-storming-supporters-very-special/> [accessed 25 January 2021]

4 Nicole Chavez, ‘Rioters breached US Capitol security on Wednesday. This was the police response when it was Black protestors on DC streets last year’, CNN, (January 2021) <https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/police-response-black-lives-matter-protest-us-capitol/index.html> [accessed 15 January 2021];

Charles M. Blow, ‘What Unity’, The New York Times, (January 2021)

<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/opinion/trump-impeachment-unity.html> [accessed 15 January 2021]