“Sixteen Shots and a Cover-Up!”: Mainstream and Black News Media Coverage of Chicago's Struggle Over Police Reform

On October 20, 2014, Chicago police fatally shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times. More than a year later, activists forced the release of the police dashcam video, prompting public outrage, political fallout, and a Department of Justice investigation that led to Chicago's agreement to a consent decree for police reform in January 2019. This study engages Hallin’s model of public spheres alongside Squires’ theorization of oppositional publics to examine Chicago Tribune and Chicago Defender coverage of the years-long aftermath of McDonald's murder. I theorize 2015–2019 as a conjunctural crisis, marked by rampant public mistrust of State-sponsored institutions, that momentarily shifted public discourse into a “sphere of deviant consensus.” Using grounded theory coding procedures, I elaborate discursive themes and shifts within and across each newspaper's coverage to demonstrate the ideological struggle that played out through the popular. The results of the textual analysis demonstrate nuances, fluidity, and contradictions in each newspaper's role in and as the public sphere. These findings offer insight into the possibilities and limitations of news media to disrupt dominant public consensus and advance counterhegemonic public discourse.