LeBron James "The Decision" Overshadows the Oscar Grant Verdict in the National Media
"Oscar Grant will not be playing for Miami cause he was murdered by a cop."
Bartunde Thurston co-founder of Jack and Jill Politics provides commentary on the trial and resulting verdict in the Oscar Grant case in Los Angeles yesterday. Grant was shot and killed by a BART transit cop in Oakland on January 1, 2009.
If you were looking for LIVE coverage, a "Breaking News" segment of the verdict on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, or FOX News... you were out of luck. Not one of the networks covered the announcement as it happened. The news media decided the Oscar Grant verdict did not deserve national coverage. However during the Lebron James free agency decision later in the evening, the Rachel Maddow Show (airing at the same time over on MSNBC) did cover the story. Local media in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area naturally had extensive coverage and reaction to the guilty of manslaughter and not murder jury verdict. But everyone else was left to fend for themselves by turning to the internet and new media outlets to hear the news on Oscar Grant.
Did we all not see the media splash the YouTube cell phone video on the cable news outlets back on the first day of 2009?
Bartunde Thurston co-founder of Jack and Jill Politics provides commentary on the trial and resulting verdict in the Oscar Grant case in Los Angeles yesterday. Grant was shot and killed by a BART transit cop in Oakland on January 1, 2009.
If you were looking for LIVE coverage, a "Breaking News" segment of the verdict on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, or FOX News... you were out of luck. Not one of the networks covered the announcement as it happened. The news media decided the Oscar Grant verdict did not deserve national coverage. However during the Lebron James free agency decision later in the evening, the Rachel Maddow Show (airing at the same time over on MSNBC) did cover the story. Local media in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area naturally had extensive coverage and reaction to the guilty of manslaughter and not murder jury verdict. But everyone else was left to fend for themselves by turning to the internet and new media outlets to hear the news on Oscar Grant.
Did we all not see the media splash the YouTube cell phone video on the cable news outlets back on the first day of 2009?
Should the lack of media coverage happen in this instant media access and technological starved society that we currently live in?
There seems to be a need for more minority owned tv news outlets (opps... we mean at least one!), rather than the corporately owned gatekeepers that exist today. This is what happens when you have BET, Centric, VH1 Soul and TV One entertainment/music video channels catering to the African American community, and none of them does news. This is what happens when local radio stations do not do regular newscasts. This is what happens when nationally syndicated radio shows main topic of conversation is "who is cheating on who" and "who is on the downlow."
As Bartunde puts it ...Oscar Grant was dishonored. We agree.
Read Baratunde Thurston's commentary and see the video news coverage from Jack and Jill Politics.
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