Media Coverage
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The Webster report contends that LAPD's failure to deal with two flash points where early rioting occurred and its being televised by media contributed to the spread of the disturbance (LA Times, October 22, 1992a). Television commentators also commented openly about the lack of law enforcement in the area they were reporting from. At both spots, hands-off decisions by high-ranking officers created the impression-spread by way of live television broadcasts--that lawbreakers would be treated with impunity, the [Webster] panel found.
According to the Webster Report, police should have cordoned off the area and prevented people from entering it. This would have reduced the number of victims since many were attacked in their cars. Early reports indicated that people were actually driving to the area to view the violence (OES, 1992). It is difficult to determine the role media played in encouraging looting and other acts. The KTLA News Director commenting on this finding of the Webster report stated: We told the community and the world what was happening. We were not saying to our audience, 'Hey, look what's happening, come down here.' The people who wanted to participate in the lawlessness saw a situation to exploit, and that's because they're lawless -- not because they saw it on television. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 22, 1992b) Vern Bengtson, a professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California, felt that television served as a catalyst. There was an immediate spreading of information that caused people to react in ways that they normally would not have reacted. It allowed the barriers to come down between nonviolence and violent, antisocial behavior. ...people would have rioted whether there was TV coverage or not. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 22, 1992b). News coverage probably did influence citizen behavior. They could determine where the most violent areas were so they could avoid them or, in some cases, go and see what was going on. The Webster Report states that media "acted as a catalyst" for the events that followed (Webster, 1992, p. 122). Media coverage was definitely important to the EMS Authority for understanding the scope and for estimating the probable duration of the disturbance. The Kerner Commission investigated what role media plays, if any, in spreading the violence. They found that generally the news media tried to give an accurate and balanced view of the 1967 disorders. However, in some cases the media tended to give "an exaggeration of both mood and event." The Commission did not stop with this question, however. They went on to note that media plays a significant role in reporting the problems of race relations. In particular the report notes that: "they have not communicated to the majority of their audience -- which is white -- a sense of the degradation, misery and hopelessness of life in the [people living in these poor areas]" (Kerner, 1968, P. 20). This is probably true today insofar as most of the coverage given to activities in low income neighborhoods on a daily basis seems to be gang or drug related rather than providing insights on what it means to Latinos, African-American, Anglos, Asian-Americans and others who live in and cope with poverty. |
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