When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims

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WHITE SUSPECT


That's how the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal chose to present the story of Amy Bishop, a former college professor who eventually pleaded guilty to killing three colleagues and wounding three others at a faculty meeting in 2010.


BLACK VICTIM



And that's the headline AL.com ran about the shooting death of a 25-year-old black man in Alabama earlier this year.



WHITE SUSPECT



This is how the Staten Island Advance covered the case of Eric Bellucci, a mentally ill New York man who allegedly killed his parents.


BLACK VICTIM



Meanwhile, NBC News ran this headline during ongoing coverage of the Trayvon Martin killing.



WHITE SUSPECT



This Fox News headline quoted friends shocked that 15-year-old Jared Michael Padgett had entered his high school heavily armed and killed a classmate, injured a teacher and took his own life.



BLACK VICTIM



But in Florida, this headline in the Ledger focused on a police account that made the death of a black 19-year-old seem somehow expected, or at least unsurprising.

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WHITE SUSPECT


In the wake of the mass shooting in Santa Barbara, California, earlier this year, theWhittier Daily News offered a headline showing one man's disbelief that Elliot Rodger could have committed such a crime.


BLACK VICTIM


Earlier this month, the New York Daily News ran this headline, carrying comments by the Ohio attorney general that appeared to defend police after killing a black man at a Walmart.


WHITE SUSPECT



This was the headline given to an Associated Press story at Mlive.com about an Ohio teen who later pleaded guilty to a school shooting in which three students were killed and two were wounded.


BLACK VICTIM


But when an unarmed father of two was killed by a police officer while entering a vehicle that contained his own children, the Los Angeles Times served up this claimfrom officials.