When the Media Gets It Wrong
/It was a story that dominated the news in Washington, DC.
A 12-year-old African American girl said she was held down by 3 white boys in her school and the boys cut off her dreadlocks.
WRC Reporter Shomari Stone tweeted out the story and it got thousands and thousands of retweets.
The story had it all, bullies, racism and to top it off, the school is the same one that Vice President Mike Pence’s wife Karen is a teacher.
There was just one very small problem in this story.
It was not true.
The girl’s family came out with a statement saying that the 12 -year-old that was all over DC TV, cut her own hair and made up the entire story.
But, this was not before the DC media ran story after story on the incident.
At Tegna’s WUSA, Reporter Mikea Turner reported on the story that she said broke her heart and had her shaking her head:
TONIGHT AT 11: “One of them put my hands behind my back. One of them covered my mouth. They kept on laughing and calling me names,” said Amari who had her locs cut by bullies at a private #VA school. #Springfield I was heartbroken just listening to this. Smh. @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/B1DtIlHXDE
— Mikea Turner (@MikeaTurnerTV) September 27, 2019
As Turner posted follow-ups to the story, seem appeared to turn from Reporter to activist. Check out some of her tweets as she moved all into this story of the 3 white boys bullying and cutting this girl’s hair:
After the story turned out not to be true, viewers weighed in on Turner and her reporting.
WUSA’s comedian who is also their news anchor Reese Waters produced a video to post online about the incident. He basically convicted 3 boys, the school and Karen Pence without talking to anyone. He since deleted the video, but this is a screenshot:
This is what happens when you have a comic with no training in Journalism weigh in on an issue. After the story turned out to be fake, Waters posted a follow up. No ranting video this time, just a quick line saying the story was not true and that he was deleting all his other tweets about the story.
In the WUSA newsroom, the station was quick to cover the story when the girl claimed the 3 white boys held her down. When the story turned out to be false, a memo went out to the staff saying they wanted to schedule afternoon meetings as how to proceed on the story?
Maybe the should have met before putting the first story on the air and they would not have been in this situation?
They rushed “Bullies cut Black Girl’s Hair” story to air, but now they want to meet about the follow-up story that it wasn’t true.
Did anyone ask other students if they saw this happen? Did anyone ask the school which teachers were involved and try to talk to them? Did anyone try to talk to the 3 white boys?
This is a 12-year-old girl that talked on camera. Surely, a polished Reporter would have been able to ask questions that might have shown some holes in her story. A question like, “While these boys held you down and cut your hair, why was it so even and only a trim?”
You would think that the bullies would have cut her hair much closer to her head?
As for WUSA’s Mikea Turner, you can’t put the full blame for her reporting on her. Tegna wants their Reporters to get involved in the story and show emotion.
Tegna has thrown out Journalism and replaced it with activism. Turner was doing just what the Tegna bosses wanted her to do. But, in the end, she comes out looking very badly and no viewers even know who her bosses are.
Over at WRC, Reporter Shomari Stone who also ran hard with the story has at least been more active in the follow-up story that it was all a hoax. Stone has tweeted out a number of stories about the hoax and even has retweeted people that have taken him to task for the first story. At least Stone is trying to give the retraction a bit more play.
The next time before the media decided to convicted 3 boys, a school and the Vice President’s wife, maybe you should have a newsroom meeting and put some more eyes on the story and ask a few more questions before rushing to it to air.
With so many people calling us “Fake News” and the “Enemy”, we need to be even better, otherwise, you are just playing right into these people’s hands.
