March 26, 2012 | 12:02 PM | By

Anatomy of outrage: Media response to Trayvon Martin’s death

FILED UNDER: Community

Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012–exactly one month ago. Yet outrage over the tragedy is just hitting its peak in the news cycle. Why didn’t the media, public officials, and the FBI care about this issue sooner?

CNN took up that question over the weekend. According to CNN’s Howard Kurtz, “it took a few days for the major Florida papers to cover that news. And it wasn’t until 10 days later that the killings drew a bit of national media attention from the A.P. and Reuters, The Huffington Post, and CBS This Morning. Then a bit more coverage, BET, HLN, CNN, Good Morning America. And then nearly three weeks had passed before the first article in New York Times.”

According to Kurtz’s guests, there were various factors that led to the delay: the fact that the homicide happened in a small city in Florida, instead of a major news hub like New York City; the sparsity of in-depth news coverage of killings, especially of young Black men; and the fact that the local police, at least at first, backed up Zimmerman’s claims of self defense.

When family members started speaking to the press, giving an alternative perspective on what happened, things started to blow up and the story became huge. The story’s spread to a national outrage was no doubt assisted by social media and inflamed by some national figures’ callous responses to the tragedy.

What’s important to watch now is where these conversations go. One of the most interesting takes on the incident I’ve read is at Women in Crime Ink, a blog run by female law enforcement. There, criminal profiler Pat Brown offers an interesting take on Zimmerman’s psyche:

From what I have read, he is a wannabe cop, the neighborhood ninja, the overzealous protector of the community. My guess is he might qualify for a personality disorder and be more into his role as superhero than he is into being concerned about the welfare of the local citizens or being a racist of any sort… I think George Zimmerman was “gunning” to be a hero and Trayvon ended up being the unsuspecting victim of Zimmerman’s overactive zealous power trip.

Brown’s conclusion is that this one man’s racist attitudes, whether Black men should wear hoodies, and the whole massive conversation about race that the tragedy provoked is beside a bigger point. A better conversation may be about why the community–and particularly the police and district attorney–tolerated such vigilantism.

  • DDUKE

    i live in south carolina. in columbia ,  the states capitlal , 7 BLACKS ages 13 to 21 attacked and brutally beat a young white man named Carter Strange. these 7 animals ,yes animals beat this young man within an inch of his life. the MAIN STREAM MEDIA all but ignored this incident. a pure and simple HATE CRIME. had the victim been black and the attackers white this would have been a hate crime. the usual hate mongers ,racist so called leaders of the black community Sharpton , Jackson etc.would have been in S.C. calling for justice .Blacks would be in the skreets marching looting etc. CHIMPING OUT so to speak .Its ok for a bunch of blacks to beat kill rape whitey but anytime a white person commits a crime against a black then the main stream media immediately publishes and airs all information it can. why? i am not condoning nor accepting the tragedy that has fell upon trayvon the killing of this child is tragic and is not acceptable . my heart and prayers go out to his family but do you see jjackson  or a sharpton condemning the blacks that attacked carter strange?the main stream media never brought the race of carter stranges’ attackers to light even though they knew they were black. whenever blacks commit crimes against whites msm never releases that info ,when groups of Black teens go on their stealing sprees these groups called flash mobs[ a black mob] msm just refers to them as a group or gang of people never mentioning race. so before you make any statements that t martins’ story was ignored look how the msm even today ignored and ignores the WHITE CARTER STRANGES OF THIS WORLD . BLACK CRIME ON WHITE IS ALLRIGHT YOU NEVER SEE IT IN THE NEWS BUT LET A BLACK GET ATTACKED BY A WHITE  ITS HEADLINES ON EVERY STATION AND NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD. WHITE PEOPLE FORGOTTEN AND BETRAYED ALL OVER THE USA BY THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA

  • Gwen

    This whole situation is crazy,are they waiting for a riot or something to breakout.Whom ever his parents are should be ashamed of themselves for doing nothing to hold this MAN their son responsible for his actions. I don’t care what office the parents held NO ONE is above the law. Do they plan to keep him in hiding forever? Because this is not going away until justice is served. And by the way why is the parents hiding?

  • Anonymous

    When family members started speaking to the press, giving an alternative perspective on what happened, things started to blow up and the story became huge. The story’s spread to a national outrage was no doubt assisted by social media and inflamed by some national figures’ callous responses to the tragedy.
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  • Anonymous

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  • http://www.facebook.com/Javon707 Burger An Fries

    The first thing prejudice people like to do is bring up articles about crimes black persons committed when it comes to topics like this. what someone did in south carolina has no relevance to trayvon martin. white people have been killing black people for years. black people have been demonized in the media every since the media was created. would it satisfy you that the media promulgate crimes committed by blacks against whites? what would you get out of it? would it reinforce your prejudice towards black people? contrary to your belief, white people have always been on the front page of the newspaper. when a pretty white girl goes missing, like natalee halloway, does it not get international headlines? when a black woman goes missing, when have you seen the media all over that? do you feel that your “white privilege” is slipping away? do you feel that black people have been giving a little more than people like you would like to see? do you feel that whites should remain a top priority and everyone else an option?