Publication is Not Saturation: Lessons from Further Conversations on Protest Coverage

We began contextualizing our research by collecting community feedback through a brief survey, distributed and conducted by Resolve Philly’s Equally Informed Philly and community engagement teams and their partners. They tabled at community events around the city this summer and collected hundreds of written responses from residents. Participants answered two brief questions on coverage of the protests from May and June 2020. Of the 482 responses we collected, 403 respondents, or 84%, said they did see coverage of the protests in question at the time. Of those who said they did see coverage, 234 said the local news coverage of the events was accurate, while 154 respondents said it was not accurate.

Respondents also had the opportunity to provide contact information so that we could follow up with a longer, open-ended survey. A few agreed to take part, as did several Equally Informed Philly text line subscribers. While we didn’t receive a mass (and thus representative) response to our surveys, the participants’ responses to open-ended questions, nearly a year after the events in question, illustrate a wide range of reactions to and the impact of local reporting. 

Our first open-ended prompt asked respondents, “How would you describe the local news you saw?” Their responses included:

• “Some parts were accurate, but they focused only on looting and repeated the stories of police without critical thinking or investigation.“
• “Only somewhat accurate; it didn’t do enough historical research on the history of racist policing that brought us to this point. But the Inquirer did do a long piece about the over 100 year history of racist policing in Philadelphia.”
• “Made it look like riots and not protests for justice “
  
• “Empathetic toward BLM, Antifa and opportunists instead of more arrests”
• “Biased toward police conduct being less violent and horrifying than it was”

The second prompt asked, “What protest-related topics do you think were under-reported?” The responses included:

• “Under-reported was how it was going to stop.” 
• “It was underreported in the sense that they continued to run the same story from the same perspective adding little depth & value outside. Many local news outlets focused on a specific weekend or the [national] guard or ATM [explosions] when and they never really reported on the [people] actually in the streets. Their feelings and stories became secondary (Black [and] brown voices specifically).”
• “The way the police responded differently to protestors of different races and in different parts of the city.”
• “How major retail chains loot more over the years than the damage done during the protests.  For example, paying workers minimum wage with little or no benefits.”
• “The pain of local communities; the demands of local organizers; the violent, illegal tactics of the police”
• “The perspective of people who didn’t agree with what was happening“
• “Philadelphians that back the blue. Mayhem and costly destruction”

We also asked what respondents felt was over-reported:

• “Damage to property; what they call ‘looting,’ but major retail chains loot more over the years than the damage done during the protests.  For example, paying workers minimum wage with little or no benefits.”
• “Looting”
• “BLM”
• “Damage to property”
• “Everything”

When asked for their further thoughts on the coverage from this time period, respondents continued to offer their opinions on what they felt was under- or over-covered, and how. Those responses included:

• “Journalists should have covered more about the history of racist policing in this city.  There should have been more coverage of the Black people who were not protesting that got teargassed, even while standing in their yard or on their porch.
• “Police here constantly lie about situations in which they used violence, and city officials back them up even when they know or should know they are lying. If the New York Times had not reported on the pepper-spraying of protestors on the highway, our authority figures would never have apologized. Why does it take a newspaper from New York to properly report on events that happened here and that thousands of Philadelphians witnessed?” [Editor’s Note: Local news organizations like WHYY did report on the pepper-spraying of protesters, but following a high-profile New York Times investigation Mayor Jim Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw apologized publicly.]
• “As a reporter who covered them — and a Philly native — I was shocked, traumatized and incensed by the protests, police conduct & the local news coverage (particularly broadcast) of the event. I’m honestly still processing how troubling yet unsurprising these blatantly racist approaches to bothsideism were.” 
• “Interview those who live near all the unnecessary destruction and closures caused by the so-called peaceful protesters along the Aramingo shopping corridor. Understand how they really feel, zero coverage, completely one sided.”
• “The news media should have been reporting on who was inciting and committing these insurrections, the fact that small businesses and black owned businesses were being destroyed, and what the people of Philadelphia thought about their communities being destroyed.”

While many of those who provided these additional comments seemed to agree on the tenor of local coverage, it’s clear that each individual had a distinct impression of what local news outlets did, in fact, cover. Of course, there are many factors at play here: each individual has a distinct life experience that comes to bear on their equally unique news consumption habits. 

One common thread throughout these responses is a sense that journalists were not telling community stories accurately or focusing enough on residents’ experiences of these events. This notion aligns with our research, which found that public figures and law enforcement were prominently featured as sources in the content we analyzed. Another common theme is a desire for context, referenced in responses seeking “historical research” or “the history of racist policing.”