‘Violence bait’ —the narrative the Twin Cities tried to build in the mainstream press
In the wake of the Derek Chauvin verdict, Mel Reeves, the editor of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, and a 30-year member of the community where George Floyd was murdered, tells Kyle Pope, editor and...
26 Apr 202126min
Jelani Cobb on the murder of Daunte Wright, the Derek Chauvin trial, and how to tell the whole story
Reporters were in Minneapolis covering the trial of Derek Chauvin when news broke about the police shooting of Daunte Wright. On this week’s Kicker, Jelani Cobb, a staff writer at the New Yorker and t...
16 Apr 202116min
“They forget about you:” The media advice Parkland parents give to mass shooting survivors
Joaquin Oliver was murdered in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. His parents, Manuel and Patricia Oliver, recognize a pattern, both in how the US media covers mass shootings by rote, ...
2 Apr 202126min
America does not know what a mass shooting looks like
In August 2019, days after 32 people died in the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings, our host Kyle Pope spoke with John Temple. Temple was the editor of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News when the Columbine ...
25 Mar 202123min
Racism, Atlanta, and the race for a narrative
In the wake of the shootings in Atlanta this week, the media has focused on the killer’s story and struggled to explain why the attacks were racist. The process has dehumanized the victims.On this wee...
19 Mar 202133min
Pandemic: Why is it so hard to say there’s hope?
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, most media coverage has focused on the ongoing physical health disaster and the need to convince readers and elected officials to take action. But the cov...
15 Mar 202122min
Toxic: A break in the Cuomo fever dream
Refusing to learn female reporters’ names, to speak on the record, to refrain from embarrassing comments. The Andrew Cuomo that political reporters know is entirely different from the pandemic persona...
5 Mar 202128min
Michael Tubbs on the politics of disinformation, racism, and news deserts
Last year, Michael Tubbs was the focus of an HBO documentary, "Stockton On My Mind," that followed his experience trying to reinvent Stockton, California as the city’s first African-American mayor. Wi...
26 Feb 202122min
