Episode 06: The Media’s Default Setting of White Supremacy
artwork pictured by @/yesitsalex___
In Episode 6 we explore how the media both consciously and subconsciously works to smear black victims, protect the police, and works overtime to ameliorate the sensibilities of white media consumers.
The white supremacist regime at work in the media can be broken down into three main narrative devices: 1) The use of language to downplay state violence and assert false parity 2) The uncritical dissemination of exaggerated or made up threats to police to turn the aggressor into the victim 3) The posthumous smearing of black victims to rationalize their killing after the fact.
In this episode we examine the mechanisms of these narrative devices, how they influence public perception and why they create the media environment that makes more Mike Browns all but certain.
The Guest
Dr. Jared Ball
Dr. Jared A Ball is a professor of Media, Communications, and Africana Studies at Morgan State University in Maryland. Dr. Ball is a prolific writer, speaker, and multimedia producer at imixwhatilike.org. His commentary can be read everywhere from the Washington Post to the Nation, the Grio to the Root, and beyond. A forthcoming from Third World Press entitled “Not Our President: New Directions from the Pushed Out, the Others, and the Clear Majority in Trump’s Stolen America” will featured his essay “Agent Orange: Donald Trump as Political Chemical Warfare.”
Show Notes
Here’s some stuff mentioned or referenced during the show, or related to the topic in general. You know, in case you wanted to dig deeper.
Copspeak: 7 Ways Journalists Use Police Jargon to Obscure the Truth
Adam Johnson | July 11, 2016 | FAIR
Media’s Baltimore ‘Teen Purge’ Narrative Falling Apart
Adam Johnson | April 29, 2015 | FAIR
Irreconcilable Anti-Blackness and Police Violence w Dr. Frank Wilderson
Dr. Jared Ball | October 1 2014 | IMIXWHATILIKE.org
The Myth of Black Buying Power
Dr. Jared Ball | July 28, 2017 | IMIXWHATILIKE.org
Federal Documents Debunk Baltimore ‘Gang Threat’ Narrative
Adam Johnson | June 25, 2015 | FAIR
“Officer-Involved” Obfuscation
John Patrick Leary | September 1 2016 | Jacobin
Making Black Lives Expensive
Michael McCanne | April 14 2015 | Jacobin
A Shooting Reminiscent of the LAPD’s Worst Days /
Joe Domanick | June 6 1990 | LA Times
Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction
Forrest G. Wood | 1968
Who’s Talking?
These are the hosts of Citations Needed
Adam H. Johnson is a media analyst for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. His writing has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Alternet and elsewhere.
Nima Shirazi is an editor for Muftah, a digital foreign affairs magazine. His political analysishas appeared in Salon, Truthout, Mic, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting and Al Jazeera English, among other outlets.
