We are in LA as I write this, not too far from yesterday's televised protest/violence. I thought again as we watched on TV how easy it is for my white friends and family throughout Red America to denigrate opposition to police actions - they've never been subject to it due to their skin color and relative economic prosperity.
All those years of Sunday sermons have fallen on deaf ears.
A good friend of mine (S. Cha) gifted me with a subscription to your Substack. She and I worked together in Los Angeles in the 90’s. It’s nice to have analysis from someone who knows the business of journalism and the Los Angeles area more broadly. Thanks!
As I’m sure you know the TV media also focus on the “otherness” that violence signifies—“Fhry” are not like us orderly elite liberal people with a voice. In this they are linked to the folks back at home who profess horror even though they actually see lots of other kinds of violence. I only once saw a significant break in this media attitude. During Katrina I watched a woman reporter practically break down as she described the situation. She was visibly shaken and horrified by the sight of people in the arena and drowning outside. She identified with them as a human. Not other. The contrast in her visage and voice from the usual reporter conveyed a shock that you never see.
Your perspectives and the wisdom gained from life experience about the LA protests & reaction are much appreciated by me. I do not watch televsions news, only read a variety of digital newspaper (paid subscriptions) and substacks and what friends share. I needed this perspective and information because I'm in my own bubble created by no social media or television. I value my time and try to gain information from many sources so I eliminated the time suck of propaganda that social media can be and the distortion of televison long ago. Still, that is a bubble for me because those platforms are hugely influential to our society and its reactions. I have shared this piece with friends.
Corroborating your take on the tv coverage. If you watched MSNBC cover the protests yesterday evening, you saw cameras fixated on smoking cars even though only a few had been burned. You saw a jackass breathlessly reporting from the scene as if he were in a war zone. The studio anchor teased an interview with Gavin Newsom as ‘just ahead’ ‘next’ etc at least five times as they went to ads. The same anchor interviewed experts and authorities mostly saying platitudes, sometimes inanities. But Chief Karen Bass said the right things well. You didn’t see a single interview with a protester, the majority of whom were peacefully opposing in a situation created by ICE goons in tactical gear much earlier in the weekend.
MSNBC, needing drama for commercial purposes, poorly countered the inflammatory rhetoric (“insurrection”) the White House instigators used to prepare for more extreme uses of force by National Guards staged nearby and Marines 70 miles down the coast.
Very helpful analysis. Thank you
We are in LA as I write this, not too far from yesterday's televised protest/violence. I thought again as we watched on TV how easy it is for my white friends and family throughout Red America to denigrate opposition to police actions - they've never been subject to it due to their skin color and relative economic prosperity.
All those years of Sunday sermons have fallen on deaf ears.
A good friend of mine (S. Cha) gifted me with a subscription to your Substack. She and I worked together in Los Angeles in the 90’s. It’s nice to have analysis from someone who knows the business of journalism and the Los Angeles area more broadly. Thanks!
As I’m sure you know the TV media also focus on the “otherness” that violence signifies—“Fhry” are not like us orderly elite liberal people with a voice. In this they are linked to the folks back at home who profess horror even though they actually see lots of other kinds of violence. I only once saw a significant break in this media attitude. During Katrina I watched a woman reporter practically break down as she described the situation. She was visibly shaken and horrified by the sight of people in the arena and drowning outside. She identified with them as a human. Not other. The contrast in her visage and voice from the usual reporter conveyed a shock that you never see.
Your perspectives and the wisdom gained from life experience about the LA protests & reaction are much appreciated by me. I do not watch televsions news, only read a variety of digital newspaper (paid subscriptions) and substacks and what friends share. I needed this perspective and information because I'm in my own bubble created by no social media or television. I value my time and try to gain information from many sources so I eliminated the time suck of propaganda that social media can be and the distortion of televison long ago. Still, that is a bubble for me because those platforms are hugely influential to our society and its reactions. I have shared this piece with friends.
Corroborating your take on the tv coverage. If you watched MSNBC cover the protests yesterday evening, you saw cameras fixated on smoking cars even though only a few had been burned. You saw a jackass breathlessly reporting from the scene as if he were in a war zone. The studio anchor teased an interview with Gavin Newsom as ‘just ahead’ ‘next’ etc at least five times as they went to ads. The same anchor interviewed experts and authorities mostly saying platitudes, sometimes inanities. But Chief Karen Bass said the right things well. You didn’t see a single interview with a protester, the majority of whom were peacefully opposing in a situation created by ICE goons in tactical gear much earlier in the weekend.
MSNBC, needing drama for commercial purposes, poorly countered the inflammatory rhetoric (“insurrection”) the White House instigators used to prepare for more extreme uses of force by National Guards staged nearby and Marines 70 miles down the coast.