For my first short argument I am going to define how in today’s society and the growing distrust with law enforcement is creating a more hostile relationship between the two, and the media is an antagonizing factor to this situation.
Since the creation of team policing, “community” policing and establishing a healthy relationship with the public has been a main priority. Police related violence has been declining in numbers in the last decade but there have been some major instances that can cause a threat to a possible rise in those numbers again one day. It seems monotonous that every week there is another headline in the news regarding a controversial topic with law enforcement. An example of how this relationship is becoming more is the shooting of Dallas police officers in 2016 which ended up killing five officers and injuring nine. This attack on police was the deadliest event for law enforcement in the U.S. since September 11, 2001. The shooter of this catastrophic event said that he was angry and upset with police shootings with black men and wanted to kill white police officers. The abundance of police related shootings with the public led to this fatal shooting and was the direct result of the hostile environment between the police and the community. The Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements have been sweeping over the United States and the media has been there the whole time. The media has been known to usually be negatively portraying the police in incidents with the public or do a poor job fully explaining it, for years now and this is how they can be defined as the “fuel” to the fire. The media does this thing where it will only focus on one part of the story or leave out vital information so that the story sounds better. This has a negative impact on society because they believe what they hear on the news, and these headlines are the way people form opinions about certain topics. The news really shouldn’t skew the information for their benefit, it should be told how it really is. So as you can see, the media has a major influence with the ongoing issues between the community and law enforcement. The news should just focus on getting their story across to the people who watch, not just a company for headlines.
Works Cited
Stoughton, Seth. “Is the Police-Community Relationship in America beyond Repair?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 8 July 2016, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-police-community-relationship-in-america-beyond-repair/2016/07/08/595c638c-454b-11e6-bc99-7d269f8719b1_story.html?utm_term=.e58d4def990a.
Rowan Counterintuitive 