Protests aren’t what they look like on TV

How the news screws up protest coverage, explained by experts.

The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery have ignited protests around the world. Those protests have dominated news coverage lately — but when it comes to communicating the demonstrations’ scale, character, and purpose, a lot of that coverage falls short.

Part of that is because of the media’s incentive to highlight the most dramatic imagery; it’s why so much protest coverage has been filled with violent and chaotic scenes of fire, looting, and tear gas. But it’s also because of the nature of protest imagery itself.

In this video, journalism professor Jason Johnson and Vox visuals editor Kainaz Amaria explain that while the news can show you what a protest looks like, it’s a lot worse at telling you why it’s happening.

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