Dear Nia...
When I first heard the story of how the gruesome murder of 18 year old, Nia Wilson, was covered, I was so disturbed by the reporting of this vicious act! 1)The victim was referred to as a black "WOMAN" and 2) The attacker was described as "ALLEGED" attacker. These two points raise pause in that it shapes a narrative that Nia Wilson wasn't indeed a kid.
The reality is that, Yes She Was, even at 18! Although she was 18 years old, she HAD NOT experienced life yet! She WAS NOT a grown woman, simply a grown girl who could have had her entire life ahead of her! She was a recent graduate from high school, she was indeed still a baby who had so much more growing to do in order to be a "woman". SHE WAS A TEEN!
Bad Reporting Covered by TYT: Commentary on KTVU
Secondly, the idea of calling the attacker the alleged attacker gives him the humanity of innocence until proven guilty! NEVER did he deserve that respect, but his white skin afforded him the privilege of being deemed worthy enough to not be vilified... and it was indeed Nia's black skin that automatically made her a bad person, deserving of something awful to happen to her!
I wonder, who and what are holding media accountable to their actions and reports; from the journalist who creates their own media content: scripts, chooses pictures for their story's and reports out, the media outlet's producers and media conglomerates from which they came represent? Where's the accountability piece? Who's job is this? NABJ (Nat. Ass. of Black Journalist) or something/someone else? Who's taking lead on holding media accountable?
This report is on the complete opposite spectrum of what the previous post gives reference to! This report was well done! Perhaps because it was at the discretion of a black female journalist or bigger news station, ABC News? They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To that end, media coverage is in the perspective of the journalist who creates the 30 to 90 second snippet- and if that journalist or media outlet is an underlying racist, bigot, or culturally incompetent individual in a systemically racist and overtly oppressive society, then we continue the same cycle of one-sided journalism and reporting!
Justice Reporting Covered by ABC News, Lindsay Davis: Good Morning America
By my standards, there's #AverageReporting which is the typical one-sided, strategically crafted narrative that shapes the perspectives of the country overall and gives way to implicit bias' we see all the time (often damning and harmful). There's #TruthfulReporting in which our media does NOT do a goo job of, but it seeks to tell the truth and doesn't sacrifice the integrity of truth in the quest for viewership or lack of morality. And then there's #JusticeReporting in which justice is the end goal, realizing that media is supposed to be an unbiased form of information gathering!
#JusticeForNia #SayHerName
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