The conversation
Being skeptical about resources is the job of a journalist – but it does not always happen when the police are the police.
The video from the police’s body camera shows Adam Toledo’s hands raised just before he was shot. Chicago Police via AP The death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo could have made international headlines on March 29, 2021 – the day he was shot dead by a police officer – if the emerging story had been different. Instead, early news reports about the incident were based on a statement from police saying Toledo was dying in an ‘armed confrontation’. An image of a gun recovered at the scene was also released. Prosecutors said during a bond trial for the man who was with Toledo when the chase began, that a gun was in Toledo’s hand when police shot him dead. The camera footage released two weeks later now casts doubt on the accuracy of the story. A short video clip shows a chase ending with Toledo turning his body with arms up towards the officer. There is no gun in his hands when the shot is fired. The Cook State Attorney’s Office has since said the prosecutor “did not fully inform himself” before speaking. Others go further and say the prosecutor lied. Either way, the body camera footage shifted the story. Protesters take to the streets in Chicago. Jacek Boczarski / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images As a scholar investigating media coverage of police and protests, I believe Toledo’s death reveals a blind spot in journalism: a tendency to join the narrative of the “police said” to go without questioning outwardly whether it is right. Unreliable sources? Journalists are responsible for quickly compiling the first draft of history. To do this, the profession has routines and norms that help it deliver news in a systematic way. Breaking news reporters often rely on the accounts and statements made by official sources. This often includes the narratives and statements of official sources: politicians, police and official spokespersons. These are people with whom journalists regularly work; they are often more accessible under pressure from a deadline – especially if a victim’s friends and family are difficult to reach or less willing to talk to the press. And even if officials are wrong or say something defamatory, a journalist can regularly report with impunity for what they say. All of this gives the police the opportunity to form the initial version of the event – and it gets their version of the story in the public consciousness before victims, families and their supporters can do so. But often they do so in an incomplete, misleading way or presented for strategic reasons. Official statements may intentionally or not withhold or omit information. In the case of Toledo, in the original statement given to the media on the day of the shooting, it was mentioned that ‘one armed offender, a’ man ‘, had fled from the police and a’ confrontation ‘had taken place. “The officer fired his weapon and hit the offender in the chest.” There is no question that, as came to light later, it appears that the gun was thrown and Toledo raised his hands. In the incident report, Toledo was mentioned as a ‘John Doe’ and between the ages of 18 and 25 – and so it could not appear that Toledo was a child. Similarly, on May 26, 2020, a day after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the city’s police released a statement to the media on the subject ‘Man dies after medical incident during police interaction’. It is noted that the ‘suspect’ ‘physically resisted’ and died after ‘suffering medical distress’. It does not say that an officer pinned Floyd to the ground for more than nine minutes with a knee on his neck. Just a few months earlier, in the police incident report documenting the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2020, officers did not contain important details. It called her injuries “no” and suggested there was no forced entry to her building. In fact, a capram was used and Taylor was shot several times. And in June 2020, when a 75-year-old man broke his skull during a rally in Buffalo against police brutality, the initial official response was that he ‘stumbled and fell’. The video quickly spread showing that he was pushed towards the group by police in riot gear. In the Buffalo case, the police version of the story was fought quickly and easily. It took place in the presence of witnesses, including journalists, some of whom took videos. When the incident in Toledo’s case is not from bystanders’ cell phones, it may take longer to determine exactly what happened. The story of the victim The police usually do not immediately release camera footage – if it is released at all. Most footage is classified for internal investigations for weeks before being made available to the public. By this time, the public may have already gotten a narrative about what happened and the backgrounds of those involved. Journalists have been criticized for relying too quickly on the police to tell the stories of victims. Therefore, the public tends to know more about the criminal history of victims and their families, especially shortly after an incident, than about the history of the police officers who shot them. I recently analyzed media coverage of the protests after the death of Stephon Clark in 2018, who was holding a cellphone when police shot him in his grandmother’s backyard. The people near Clark, like his family and friends, were not the key sources that provided information about Clark’s character. Over the course of the six months of news coverage analyzed, news reports relied mostly on police bills and records that profiled Clark in stereotypical and stigmatizing ways. They were assisted by the district attorney, who posted Clark’s personal text messages and Internet searches outlining relationship issues and apparent suicidal thoughts. ‘Failure of journalism’ After too often reporters and editors have presented incomplete, misleading or outright incorrect police reports, they are now talking about the problem. It was noteworthy that journalists were the most critical in the media’s response to Toledo’s assassination. “This is why journalists should stop reporting law enforcement bills as factual,” tweeted Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times. Chris Geidner, executive director of The Appeal, a media site on legislation and criminal law, went on to say: ‘… any narrative said on’ police ‘is a failure of journalism. At best, the police should be treated as one source for a story – an unreliable narrator in cases such as officer shootings – and therefore not sufficient to establish the story. ‘It fits in with a broader media re-evaluation of policies and practices that traditionally misrepresent and inaccurately portray people of color. These include initiatives to diversify newsrooms that have a long history of under-representing coloreds. And it comes at a time when the wider public’s confidence in the police is waning. A Gallup poll in August 2020 found that confidence in the police had dropped to its lowest level since the 1993 survey began with the survey. Only 48% of respondents said they have great confidence in the police. Similarly, confidence in the media has reached a new low. [Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.] By treating police sources with the necessary and appropriate skepticism, news audiences can give a more complete picture of incidents such as police shootings and disrupt a process that privileges some voices above others. And this is not a radical idea: questioning and verifying information has always been part of the journalist’s job. It was written by: Danielle K. Kilgo, University of Minnesota. Read more: Witnessing of smartphones becomes synonymous with black patriotism after the death of George Floyd. Why photos of body photos may not clear up Danielle K. Kilgo works, consults, does not own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has not disclosed any relevant commitments outside of their academic appointment .