Police brutality tends to set off a chain reaction of events among the public. When situations of excessive police force arise, news media will immediately jump to get the latest scoop on the events. Often times being so concerned about spreading as much news as they can, they immediately take the reports of the police before all else. Sometimes creating their own narratives to spread, that serve more as commentary instead of actual news.

“Look at MSNBC, Fox News and CNN. Go between those three. There’s a take, there’s a take and there’s a take. It’s just commentary,” Freeman told the Daily Beast. “CNN wants to be pure news, but the others are just commentary. They’re just commenting on things.” (Clifton and Freeman, In One Quote, Morgan Freeman Said What Everyone’s Thinking About TV Coverage in Baltimore)

So it all begins with police brutality, then the media reporting the events whether they are truly relevant, factual, or not. With poor media coverage, and lack of genuine information that sticks, it causes the public to become fed up with what they are being told; or in most cases lack of what they are being told. The media chooses one side to support and report on while ignoring the other side. Take the recent events of the Baltimore riots. What started out as peaceful protests demanding justice for the victim of an act of police brutality, quickly became a full scale riot. However, most were not even aware of there were protests before the riots because local news sources did not report them. They were not there to cover the situation when it was at peace, but immediately jumped on board as soon as looting, property damage, and arrests were being made.

” Where were all the cameras before the situation escalated into riots? People are saying, ‘You were not all there when we were just talking and trying to make a point, but if we set something on fire, all of a sudden you’re all here. Why is that? What’s the difference?'” (Clifton and Freeman)

In some cases, these news sources will get a hold of the victim’s past criminal actions or the community in which they hailed from and use that to further discredit the victim and paint them in a negative light. Poor media coverage of events normally ends up helping police officers whenever situations like this come up because not only do they serve as distractions to the public, but it pushes the idea that it was the victim’s fault for what happened to them instead of focusing on main issue that is police brutality and excessive police force.

When the police lie or falsify their reports, it causes public outrage and the media to spread that false information. In this new age of spreading information over the internet, when these news sources report false evidence or evidence that can be easily debunked with logic, national outrage is capable of quickly evolving into global outrage.