Freddie Gray death: Many Americans - especially young people - unimpressed with media coverage of Baltimore riots
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Version 0 of 1. Lot of Americans – young people in particular – were not impressed with the way the media reported the recent unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray. They believe the media spent too much time covering the sporadic, limited riots and devoted too little time to the days of peaceful protests that had preceded the unrest. A new survey by the Pew Research Centre suggests that 48 per cent of people considered the coverage was only “fair” or “poor”, while 44 per cent said it was “excellent” or “good”. Peaceful protesters in Baltimore “While some attention was paid to Baltimore in the days immediately after Freddie Gray’s death, the awareness of what was happening in the city really exploded after rioting broke out in the city last week,” says the report. “The governor declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard, while the mayor announced a citywide curfew.” The disgruntlement is even more striking among young Americans. Pew said that people aged under 30, rated the news organisations’ coverage the most negatively. Freddie Gray died after being detained by police in April Around 30 per cent said news organisations did a poor job and another 34 per cent thought it was fair. Just 30 per cent said the media did an excellent or god job. By contrast, adults aged 50 and older were more likely to say the press did an excellent or good job. The survey found that a large share of adults aged 18-29 thought news organisations covered the non-violent protests too little (56 per cent) and just 13 per cent though there has been too much coverage of them. Meanwhile, most adults 65 and older thought, coverage of the non-violence has been the right amount (39 per cent) or too much (34 per cent). Only 17 per cent thought there was too little coverage of that aspect of the events. |