In a strange chain of events, an off duty Dallas Police officer shot a man she reportedly had no relationship with after mistaking his apartment for her own in the South Side Flats complex. Not only was Amber Guyger off by an entire floor, but her key didn't fit into the keyhole and didn't work in the door. Some outlets wrote the story as more racially charged than others.
One thing that becomes obvious in the analysis of these articles is that their topics are all slightly different. The headlines indicate that pretty well. The BBC article was also written significantly before the FOX article, which was published before the CNN piece.
The sources I used are as follows:
While some points are a little inconsistent due to the difference in topic and time of publishing, these main points could be found:
Botham Shem Jean was shot in his apartment by Amber Guyger, who thought she was in her own flat, Thursday night.
Guyger was an off duty Dallas Police officer, in uniform.
Guyger was arrested and charged with manslaughter.
She was involved in another shooting in 2017
The first point is pretty explanatory, or so you'd think. Both FOX and CNN chose to mention race right out of the gate, despite it not really being relevant to the situation right away.
CNN then goes directly on to say "Amber Guyger, who is white, was off-duty when she shot Botham Shem Jean, a black man, police said Thursday."
BBC doesn't even dabble in race at least to start. They're far more focused on delivering basic facts than the two slightly later articles by CNN and FOX, despite their opinions about how race plays into the case differing greatly as it's apparent more and more near the end of the articles.
Most outlets in some way mentioned that the officer was off duty yet still in uniform, some more particular on that than others.
FOX also points out that Guyger had been on duty all day.
This next point is one in which the publishing time gap is very apparent. It's not really good or bad, but it's important to keep in mind. At the time of BBC's article being published, the officer was not even identified to the public, when FOX put out their's, the charge hadn't yet been put in place, but when CNN covered the events this time around, she had been arrested on a charge of manslaughter.
The time gap is once again important here. As BBC didn't have access to the name of the officer, they were unaware of any previous incidents. FOX is quick to go in depth on the May incident, which makes sense as the headline suggests the point of the article is less to report on the recent shooting, but to bring it to light that this isn't the first time officer Guyger has been involved in this type of incident.
There is one final thing worth noting. Both CNN and FOX covered the vigil the family held. In their reporting on it, CNN left a pretty decently vital piece of information out of the section. While both used a quote from his mother about how Jean didn't see color,
“Botham never saw color, he never saw race. Botham wanted all of us to unite, to be together.”-Allison Jean
CNN left out that the family specifically asked Botham to be remembered as a family man and not a political agenda.
"The family asked that Jean be remembered as a youth pastor, singer and good friend and family member -- and not as the focus of speculation or political agendas, the station reported."-FOX
After CNN consistently brought up race as a major issue, left out this quote from the victim's family, and then continuously peppered the article with takes from black professors
'"We're still dealing in America with black people being killed in some of the most arbitrary ways, driving while black, walking while black and now we have to add living while black," co-counsel Benjamin Crump said."-CNN
and links to articles regarding race relations,
it's easy to see the take of the outlet. Whether this is problematic or not is worth some discussing, but it's definitely a form of bias and something worth noting.
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/psst....if I were you, I'd start watching for episodes of Pod Save CHS that may or may not be on its way..../
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