Racial Politics and News Media Coverage of Black Resistance to Police Violence in New York, 1997–2000

Abstract Comparing the coverage by The New York Times and two Black newspapers of four episodes of protests about police violence in New York in the late 1990s reveals key differences in the implicit political agendas of the two sources. The New York Times implicitly reinforced dominant political institutions and focused on short-term issues. It emphasized partisan politics as protest motivations, quoted police extensively and often printed material sympathetic to police, and typically portrayed protesters as angry or motivated by politics. Black newspapers emphasized collective resistance to long-term systemic problems with police, moral condemnation of police violence, the connection of current protests with past oppression and struggles, the involvement of youth, and Black immigrants’ growing awareness of anti-Blackness. The findings of this study explain how racialized collective memories and collective identities are formed, sustained, and/or erased in interaction with institutional politics in media discourse.