00:00As we all mourn the loss of 59 people who were shot and killed while attending a country
00:10music festival in Las Vegas, many of us have noticed a trend with the media's coverage
00:15of these mass shootings.
00:16Trevon tweeted, to speed this up a bit, lone wolf, not terrorism.
00:20Thoughts and prayers, no gun restrictions.
00:23Are more people?
00:24Now back to tax reform.
00:25The Millennial Sheep shared an article from the Washington Post with this caption, white
00:30privilege is committing the largest shooting in American history and being fondly memorialized
00:36as a country music fan.
00:38Joining me in the studio to discuss the media's response to the tragedy in Las Vegas are Lola
00:42Ogunake, host of EW The Show, Essence Senior Editor Rachel Davis, and via Skype we have
00:48Essence Now viewer, an online host and digital producer for New York's WBLS and Hot 97, Jameer
00:53Pond.
00:56All right.
00:57Let's jump right into the conversation.
00:58We often see a mass shooting described as an isolated incident committed by a lone wolf
01:03or a talk turns to mental illness.
01:05But when it's a black, brown or heaven forbid, a Muslim person, immediately it's called terrorism.
01:10First of all, Lola, I'll throw this over to you.
01:12How do you categorize a Las Vegas shooter?
01:14Is he a terrorist?
01:15I call it a domestic act of terrorism and there is a discernible difference.
01:19When it is a white person who's committed a crime, they're treated with a little more
01:23nuance, actually a lot more nuance.
01:25So we get history of that person, their background, their family's background, potential mental
01:30illness, where they're from, their likes, their dislikes.
01:32What happened to them that day?
01:34What happened to their family members?
01:35We know everything about the killer's father.
01:38We know that he was on the FBI most wanted list.
01:40We know that he broke out of prison.
01:42We know about this man's girlfriend.
01:44When it is a person of color or a person who's of the Muslim faith, they are treated as a
01:48one dimensional character who's reflective of their entire community.
01:53What do you think the repercussions are of the way that the media portrays these lone wolves
01:58or these acts of terrorism as compared to how they, you know, will talk about a Philando
02:04Castile or someone who's actually a victim of a crime?
02:06What do you think the real life repercussions are of that?
02:08I mean, quite frankly, I think the biggest repercussion is that it's just dangerous and
02:12it sends the message to other people who may be thinking that they want to plan something
02:16like this or people who are watching and wondering, you know, what are the consequences
02:20of something like this?
02:21It just, it sends the message, the incorrect message that they're not going to be held fully
02:26accountable for this act that they've committed.
02:28And this is, I mean, as we've seen, this is the largest type of one of these incidents in
02:33our country and they're still failing, you know, they're still politicizing it.
02:36They're still making it about, you know, Democrat versus Republican versus instead of human
02:42life, you know, versus holding people accountable.
02:45Right.
02:46Holding people accountable.
02:47Yeah.
02:48Jameer, I'm going to bring you in here.
02:49How do you filter out to get the correct news?
02:50I mean, there's so much noise around this whole thing.
02:52How do you get the right news that you need to and the right perspective in all this mess?
02:57Well, I think you make a very great point.
03:00Like it is about filtering out and, you know, you go to your news sources and then you start
03:05to hear trigger words like we were talking about, um, lone wolf.
03:10And then you hear, uh, you know, we're still not too far away from super predator used against
03:14the central park five.
03:16So when I hear words like that, it's automatically triggering.
03:20And I, I choose to just switch off because I understand what the media is trying to do
03:26with these cold words and the, and these trigger words.
03:29It's very, it's damaging towards African Americans and, um, it, it goes in a, in a bias towards,
03:36uh, white people and, uh, white criminals and, and acts of domestic terrorism.
03:42How do we hold the media accountable in all this?
03:45We say, can we have some articles about white male rage?
03:48You know, I've, I've seen, when I was at the New York times, our newspaper won Pulitzer's
03:53for writing about race in this country.
03:55I would challenge the New York times to dedicate an entire series to white male rage.
03:59So we need to connect those dots and we need our reporters and our anchormen to be committed
04:03to connecting those dots as well.
04:05Rachel, what are your thoughts on that?
04:06Yeah.
04:07I think it's also about, you know, looking beyond just the responsibility of, of creating
04:12a headline that's going to get people's attention and really going deeper.
04:15You know, this is a much bigger responsibility when it comes to reporters and the way that
04:20we're covering the news, the way that we are giving people their information.
04:23People are looking to these mainstream media sources first, because that's who has, you
04:28know, in their eyes, that's who has, you know, what information that they need and, and the
04:32most accurate information.
04:33So I think that the way that we're going to hold them accountable is, as she said, to,
04:38to demand better coverage and a more inclusive coverage, um, on both sides.
