RACE AND ARREST

RACE & ARREST

The eye-catching front page of New York Times online entitled “Obama Shifts Tone on Gates After Mulling Debate,” portrays a big picture of the President showing a sad face, acknowledging that his own “comments had inflamed tensions and insisted he had not meant to malign the arresting officer.” This two-page article mentioned that the police had “acted stupidly” and that the arrest was “an overreaction,” but also that, “Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.” Attached to this article are two videos with colored pictures showing separately Sgt. Crowley and the President. One entitled “Support Officer in Gates Case,” whereby police unions and other law enforcement groups said that “Sgt. James Crowley’s actions in the arrest of Professor Gates were justified.” The second one entitled “Obama on Gates Arrest” giving the President’s views on the arrest.
BBC’s front page displayed a very small picture of Professor Gates and devoted a full page article entitled “Race Tensions: Professor’s arrest highlights US ‘racial profiling:’ Unlike the New York Times, BBC refers to history of African American mistreatment, as stated “There is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.” It gave a description as to what happened on Thursday, July 23, when Professor Gates was trying to enter his house and the details which led to his eventual arrest. On the same page, in a tiny box was a remark made by Ta-Hehisi Coates, “I would say that this is the sort of thing that angers upper-class black people even more than it angers anyone else.” USA Today’s front page was dedicated to the arrest of Professor Gates, entitled: “Scholar’s arrest raises racism questions.” It also contained a colored picture of the professor with links leading to other sites on ‘racial profiling,’ and views of different black politicians. It covered over 75% of the front page. These quality presses are more informing and formal in the manner they convey information and news stories.
The front page of “The Root,” a black ethnic paper, displayed a large picture on its front page of Professor Henry Louis Gates, under the title “The Root's Editor-in-Chief Henry Louis Gates Jr. Appealing to the black minority, Root criticizes the professor’s arrest and the outrage of “racial profiling in America.” This four page article covered an extensive interview with Professor Gates regarding the details of the arrest. It came as a total shock to the professor that he was arrested after he had shown the officer his identity documents and explained that it was his house. Root, unlike the other publications, stated that it was “clear that the police officer did not follow police procedures” while doing his job, and had merely presumed that the professor was guilty, not because he was trying to enter his premises, but because he was black. Root further stated that the officer, using the power of his uniform, took Professor Gates’ belt, wallet, keys, and handcuffed him, under the pretext that the professor was loud in a pubic place; and that the officer who made the arrest, “did it out of spite, and knew that the black professor was going to file a report because of his behavior.” This paper contains diverse emotions and ideas. The front page of all the newspapers focused on Professor Gates and ‘racial profiling.’

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/us/politics/25gates.html
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/Americas
www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-07-24
http://www.theroot.com/views/skip-gates-speaks