Essay on Media Bias

Submitted By maggiemoo1
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The importance of making critical evaluations of new stories comes to play in the recent stories about the Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman case. This is a story about a young Black teenager and a neighborhood watchman that shot and killed the boy. Many news stations reported the story showing pictures of both of them that had been taken years prior to the actual event. Trayvon’s pictures showed him as an innocent boy and Zimmerman as an upset and angry in a much earlier mug shot. The media shows bias to both these individuals and seemed to be concerned with sensationalism, rather than finding out the facts in the case.
The concern they showed at the time the story broke appeared to be geared toward selling the story and building it into a racially motivated incident. The news was not completely clear or accurate and the investigative methods were not sufficient in either depth or breadth. The stories promoted the idea that Trayvon was an innocent young Black child who just happened to be out late and that Zimmerman was just looking to act as judge, jury, and executioner. The pictures of George Zimmerman seemed to promote prejudice and negative emotions from the audience. They used bias in the news by deliberately ignoring more current pictures of both these individuals.
Many news channels seemed to deliberately ignore the truth of the story regarding what type of people both Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman were. A mug shot of a younger, angry looking Zimmerman and a more recent picture shows Zimmerman in a dress coat and tie with him clearly smiling shows a distinct disregard for truthful reporting and bias in reporting. The news clearly chose to ignore any alternative perspectives in regard to this story. The stories focused on accusing Zimmerman of being an angry and trigger happy neighborhood watchman who took it upon himself to deliver justice without waiting for the police to show up. The story in the beginning did not bring out the facts about the actual events of the night this incident occurred. The media had other pictures available, including one of Trayvon Martin in a gray hoodie which they chose to ignore because it possibly might have made him look more like a criminal. Another photo of Trayvon was one of a close up showing him wearing a rack of gold teeth, or a “grill” as they call it.
However, many youth
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