Police brutality and the mainstream media

Michael P. Tremoglie:

The video showed Officer Michael Collins, who is black, striking Baum eight times during the arrest – even after he had handcuffed his white charge. As is the standard procedure Collins was transferred to desk duty pending an investigation.

Police brutality stories are red meat to the mainstream media; this would seem to be perfect for them. If this were a white cop using excessive force to arrest a black suspect, it would be on television round-the-clock. That is always national news – especially if it is on videotape –and especially if the video is taken by the NBC network affiliate of a major city like Philadelphia. Yet the silence from the mainstream media has been deafening. Only the local Philadelphia media reported this in depth. The Washington Post gave the incident all of 177 words in their May 2 online edition.

Why was there no ad nauseum reporting by the national news network broadcast or front page New York Times, L.A. Times articles? Why no righteous indignation and outrage by columnists and editorials?

Because this incident did not involve a white cop and a black suspect. This time the cop was black and the suspect white – and that does not fit the template of the liberal mainstream media, just as the shootings of black suspects by black cops do not fit their "police brutality" mold.

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