The Assassination Of Power In Freddie Gray's On Sunday

News has ideological power as it represents many different ideas and values of a particular story and/or topic. It is a method of communication that allows for a mixture of ideas and opinions and that it is not an agent of a single view or state propaganda. Such representation of ideas and values, however, can fail and lead to an ideological threat of a particular group of a certain race/ethnicity. A news item that illustrates a stereotypical portrayal of a particular group is the story of six Baltimore police officers charged with murder of the death of Freddie Gray. This essay will firstly describe this story and the type of power that threatens unbiased news reporting, and then examine the importance on how power operates within

The six police officers who were involved in Gray’s arrest handcuff his hands behind his back, shackled his legs, then putting him face down on the floor of the vehicle and did not secure him with a seatbelt. (Corcoran) The van transporting Gray made a number of numerous unexpected stops and it was during this journey in which Gray suffered a broken neck/spine. The officers ignored his pleas and did not seek for any medical help. “By the time the van arrived at the police station, Gray was not breathing and had gone into cardiac arrest.”(Fox News) The police officers, Caesar Goodson, Garrett Miller, William Porter, Edward Nero, Brian Rice and Alicia White, at this stage they sought medical attention where he underwent surgery. A week later after the incident on April 19th, Freddie Gray died. The six police officers were all taken in and charged from a range of second-degree murder to misconduct in office. (Corcoran) However, from the police union point of view, the accusation being made so early on appears to be an “egregious rush to judgment.”(Corcoran) Furthermore, by reading this story from the DailyMail by Kieran Corcoran and another one by Fox News tends to be showing only one perspective and one side of the story. As there is very little information from the police officers point of view,

Journalists frame a particular news event, such as this story as it provides a balanced account, which then takes on a distinct ideological significance. (Allan, 75) Power operates within the news media as it constructs a racist point of view. Reasoning for this is because “there are racists people working behind the scenes to present the work in such terms.”(Allan, 173) This news article of the death of the 25-year-old has caused controversial racist protest in the United States as the media strongly emphasized that it was a black male that died. This just goes to show the power that the media has and the way in which it can be operated. Although it very briefly mentioned that six of the cops who were involved in the incident, supposedly, that three of them were coloured skin, two male and one female. Therefore, the media cannot frame it as a racist issue. But, it does show to the public that people can be racists against their own race. However, comparing such story to other recent racial stories over in the US does tend to show a very stereotypical portrayal of a particular group. Thus, questions of the law enforcement are “central to many of the news media discourses in circulation around issues of race.”(Allan,