Gerald Allen

December 9, 2015

Media Narratives News Story


A Damaging Media Narrative: Why Are Black Victims Dehumanized While White Suspects Are Humanized?

Robert Dear, man suspected of Colorado Planned Parenthood Shooting.

My project is about the role the media plays when reporting stories. Even though the media is supposed to publish stories in unbiased manners, there’s still an ongoing issue of news stories having potential racial undertones. These undertones manifest themselves whenever there is an assailant that is white and potentially mentally ill and in stories when a person of color is the victim and suspected of a wrongdoing that doesn’t warrant death.

I decided to have this project be an article in the Rutgers’ Observer in the opinion section because as a journalism major, I still value a traditional story in the newspaper. My article contains some research elements, I discussed some stories that illustrated the points I made and also used information from a recent report that dealt with mental health and gun violence. I also interviewed some Rutgers’ students about their opinion on the theory that the media reports stories differently based on a person’s race.