SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Everyone run for cover. The thugs are on the loose. What happened this past Second Saturday was a tragedy. Victor Hugo Perez Zavala, 24 was shot in front of Streets of London pub located on J St. and 18th St. The gunman has not been identified and is still on the loose.
Click on the link to see what the Sac Bee had to say: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/13/3024285/sacramento-mayor-johnson-vows.html
The TV news coverage was one that was very vague. They continuously played a clip of a group of African Americans standing around while police were trying to tame the crowd. I even saw a clip of a young African American lady being held back from another young lady as if she were trying to start an altercation. The following clip I saw was of the manager of Streets of London saying how she had never seen a crowd like this before and she was scared of what's to come of the next Second Saturday.
y question is, why did the TV media portray the event like this? Are they implying/speculating that the gunman was an African American?
If one had not been to a Second Saturday before, one would think it was a typical Chico party night plus an overload of African American thugs.
The comments on the Sac Bee's article also does not help the situation of the underlying tone that African Americans are thugs and cause such great events to be shut down. A comment by Hans Brix to say, "Leave it to the ghetto folk to ruin the party for everyone..."
What does it mean to be ghetto?
Another comment made by Suburbanite was, "Gold teeth and baggy clothing is all I saw on the news."
Is it not a common theme in Hip-Hop/Rap videos to see gold teeth and baggy clothing?
I'm simply saying, the news media, especially television, needs to take a second look at how they portray certain news stories.
Mid-town is not an unsafe place, and the patrons of the city who attend these types of events, go to bars/clubs or ride their bike in this neighborhood are not vigilantes.
This tragedy could have happened any other day. It could have happened at a club after the club was letting out. It could have happened in South Side Sacramento outside of a liquor store. Would it have made the front cover of the paper? Would people be talking about shutting down the liquor store because customers were scared to shop their anymore?
Take a look at the video. Tell me what you think?
http://cbs13.com/local/sacramento.shooting.second.2.1908596.html. Click on the video to the right of the article to view the clip.
The writer sees this story through a different lens than most of the columnists, an interesting take on the shooting.
ReplyDeleteAside from some very distracting grammar and punctuation errors, the arguments are well done.
By taking on the news media, though, the writer needs to take a sharper aim with even more specifics.
Overall, the writer - on short deadline - did a credible job of addressing the issues.
With editing, it's a keeper.