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Jason Riley: Blanket media coverage giving false impression that Floyd incident 'happens to black people every day'
Published May 31, 2020
Wall Street Journal columnist and Fox News contributor Jason Riley defended law enforcement amid protests over the death of George Floyd, arguing that the "blanket media coverage" of racially charged incidents involving the police misrepresents true "police behavior" and "what black people go through on a daily basis."
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"What I'm a little concerned about is that a lot people out there protesting are doing so because they're convinced that this happens all the time to black people every day," said Riley, "that we walk around in fear of law enforcement treating us like this -- and I don’t think that what I saw is representative of either police behavior or what black people go through on a daily basis."
"I don’t think that what I saw is representative of either police behavior or what black people go through on a daily basis."
Riley told Fox News' Bret Baier that what appears to be an uptick in racially charged incidents involving the police is actually due to the "blanket media coverage when they happen because of social media and so forth -- but this does not mean that this is happening more often."
"Those two things are not distinguished in much of the coverage," he argued, "and I find that very disturbing. From all the data we have, police use of force has actually gone down considerably since the early 1970’s so these events happen less frequently and yet because when they do happen they get more attention, people have the opposite impression."
Riley warned that the misrepresentation by the media could have devastating effects, and cost more innocent lives as a result.
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"My concern is that there's going to be a pullback on the part of police in some of these communities in the aftermath of events like this," he explained, " and then these communities will not get the policing that they need and they deserve going forward, and then you'll see more black lives lost as a result."
https://www.foxnews.com/media/jason-riley-blanket-media-coverage-floyd-incident