As part of the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis’ 2015 Media Person of the Year awards on June 11, where St. Louis American publisher and executive editor Donald M. Suggs shared honors with Jennifer Blome and Don Marsh, special recognition was given to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for their coverage of the Ferguson unrest – and rightfully so. The Post’s relentless and multifaceted approach to covering the national phenomenon that stemmed from the death of Michael Brown Jr. certainly warranted the resulting positive attention, panel invitations and top-shelf awards – including a Pulitzer Prize for its photojournalism staff.
And then they cued the video. Their peers and supporters in local media settled into their seats in the auditorium at Edwards Jones Headquarters in St. Louis County for the Post’s highlight reel on their coverage of the Ferguson unrest. And from the opening frame to the very end of the video, it undermined all of their beautiful work over the past 10 months.
The Post’s Ferguson highlight reel opens with a 911 call about a “robbery” at Ferguson Market involving cigarillos. Yes, this is where they start the story, despite differing accounts whether Officer Darren Wilson even knew about the shoplifting incident when he stopped – and killed – the youth. The surveillance video from which the Post took their opening screen shots is also a painful open wound for many of us. Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson released that video at the same time as the police killer’s name, igniting fury – as the Department of Justice warned it would – following the first night of peaceful protests in Ferguson after Brown’s killing.
Through the manipulative release of this video, we learned that it only takes a few seconds of irresponsibly packaged and suspect information to dismantle progress and incite emotions. Based on their highlight reel, it was a lesson that the Post apparently missed. The arc of Ferguson in this Post video was: menacing black youth steals, police officer responds, menacing black youth attacks, brave officer kills menacing black youth, savage black community responds with violence.
To complete the narrative, Post editor Gilbert Bailon began his brief remarks following the video with a litany of abuses his staff survived (physical assaults, threats, tear gas) to cover Ferguson.
This was a segment in an awards dinner, so there was no question-and-answer period, but we were left with questions for Bailon and the Post. If this was Ferguson to you, then what compelled you to stay? Why did you dedicate so many resources to peeling back the layers of systemic dysfunction that led to the tragic death of Michael Brown Jr. if it were just a fight between a violent suspect and a police officer who feared for his life?
As our diverse leadership and staff squirmed in our seats while the video played on, it became apparent how important it is to have African Americans as part of any major decision-making process in a newsroom in St. Louis. Had this video been shown to even the least influential black employee of the Post-Dispatch, they would have (or at least should have) warned editors that this video would strike a major blow to the renewed sense of trust the Post earned in the black community during Ferguson.
Believe it or not, it gets slightly worse. The video concluded with a voicemail left by a Post reader – judging by her voice, an elderly white woman – saying that she was sick of all of the Mike Brown coverage and stories about people who “spend all of their money getting their hair done every week” – and she wants her good, old paper back. Ha, ha, ha. That was a funny ending – for somebody, apparently. Not for us.
And then there was Post editor Gilbert Bailon, talking about equipping his reporters and photojournalists with gas masks, bulletproof vests and hard hats. He even said they were given special police training in how to handle themselves amid the dangers of Ferguson. Bailon implied that Post staffers were brave soldiers defending themselves on the most vicious of enemy turfs. For a newspaper that has dramatically diversified its coverage in the past 10 months and righteously advanced the message of a more unified St. Louis region, it was a very disappointing, even disturbing, message to send to their peers in the local media.
