Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd

Now the language shifts, but just in this one case

View this email online Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. With the Hennepin County jury’s conviction on Tuesday, journalists are liberated to write that sentence. It is now a fact that can be broadcast. Up until Tuesday, journalists found themselves in an awkward space between what they could legally say out loud and what the video documented. Newsfolk could say that “Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck until he died,” or that “Chauvin was charged with murdering Floyd,” and even that “Chauvin killed Floyd,”’ but not that “Chauvin murdered Floyd.” With the conviction, journalists can now avail themselves of the simplest sentence construction and the most powerful verbs. It’s the type of relief and clarity that comes from a definitive legal verdict.  These pre-conviction lingual maneuvers exist for good reason. Journalists must stick with the facts. Murder is a legal term, and until a charge has been settled in court, it is not a legal fact. Overstating the case is trial by media.  The clarity in this case stands in juxtaposition to the opacity in so many others — Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner — in which journalists will continue to balance on this verbal tightrope. From the moment the court announced that the jury had reached a conclusion through the following morning, NPR’s coverage was extensive and well-executed. That’s no small thing for a single piece of news that every citizen hears at the exact moment it happens. NPR’s Live Updates for the trial provided an expansive news offering, including six hours of live coverage. This article revisited key moments from the trial. Following Chauvin’s conviction, this story explained critical details, from the specific charges to how the jury worked. One report featured the powerful words and reactions of George Floyd’s brothers, and others featured immediate reactions from Minneapolis and elsewhere in the country. Finally, this article added the context of other high-profile police killings in recent memory.   People gather at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis. Brandon Bell/Getty Images From the Inbox Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the NPR Contact page. Working class? Or white working class? Arnie Alpert writes: This morning's Morning Edition story on the GOP and the working class conflated “working class” with white and US-born.   Colin Oatley tweeted: As noted in the article, Republicans cynically define “working class” as “white voters without a college degree”. Shame on @npr for adopting that same ugly definition in this reporting. The reporter behind this story, NPR Congressional Correspondent Susan Davis, disagrees with this criticism. Republicans intend to target the working class of all races, she told me in an email. “They have made great pains to note that the Black and Latino working-class vote grew from 2016 to 2020 under [Former President Donald] Trump,” she said. Lower down in this story about the Republican Party’s effort to rebrand itself the party of the working class, Davis points out that 40% of the working class is people of color, and that more people who make less than $50,000 a year voted for Biden than for Trump last November. “Yes, it is of course a fact that whites are a majority of the working class overall, and the overwhelming majority of the GOP working-class vote,” Davis said in her email to me. “But to suggest that I should have reported that Republicans are exclusively targeting white working-class votes — or only made gains among white working-class voters in 2020 — would simply be inaccurate, in the headline or otherwise.” If Republicans are genuinely interested in advocating for working-class voters who are not white, critical news consumers are going to need more evidence. Given the many things Trump and other Republicans have done to alienate and disenfranchise nonwhite Americans, it would be a shift for the party to suddenly embrace diversity.  I want Davis to push her Republican sources to acknowledge the diversity of the working class and say out loud how they intend to address the needs of everyone in this economic bracket. She believes she did ask the question, and Republicans responded by identifying specific political positions, like the minimum wage, union issues and combating child poverty, that benefit the working class of all races. Politicians frequently use coded language to craft a narrative that perverts the truth to serve their agenda. When journalists mimic that imprecise and coded language without questioning it, they pass along the inaccuracies to the audience.  Davis’ story points to this coded language: “Since 2010, the most significant growth in the Republican coalition has been white voters without a college degree — an imperfect but widely used metric to quantify the working-class voting bloc.” But she doesn’t squarely address the discrepancy. A big part of the problem here is a gap between how average citizens apply the terms “working class” and “middle class” and how sociologists define those same terms. Citizens use “working class” to describe people with jobs who don’t have college degrees. Sociologists say “working class” is the income bracket (adjusted for household size) just below middle class, which is two-thirds to double the national median income, or $48,500 to $145,500 for a household of three people. (Here’s a great calculator to figure out where you are.) How do you report a story in which words mean one thing to your sources and another to the public and yet another to academics who study the subject? You have to use more words to bridge the gap.  In this story, either Republicans are sincerely reaching out to workers of all races, or they are only interested in the white working class. In the end, it wasn’t clear to readers and listeners which statement was true. — Kelly McBride No omission Atlant Schmidt writes: I heard most of your story this morning about YouTube being the chief vector for disseminating disinformation and its lack of APIs that would allow detailed analysis of the material being presented on their site. I may have missed that portion of the story where you may have said this, but during those parts of the story that I heard, not once did you mention that YouTube is owned by Google (Alphabet). To me, this is a critical omission as it greatly changes the character of the “API question” and your reporter should have probed much more deeply into the question of whether YouTube’s ownership by Google affects what data YouTube has been allowed to present via APIs. Competent, complete APIs, of course, weaken YouTube’s competitive position and might expose the ways in which Google data (which is massive) is steering YouTube’s choices in what videos it presents to which viewers. In the Morning Edition story you’re referencing, host Rachel Martin states in the opening sentence, “When Congress holds hearings about the role of social media in the spread of misinformation, they call the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook, but neither has as much influence as the CEO of Google because Google owns YouTube, and YouTube's reach around the world is massive.” To your point, it would have been a critical omission not to say that. NPR said it right away. — Kayla Randall ‘Weapon’ vs. ‘gun’ Russell Scott writes: It is important to be both specific and accurate when referring to or differentiating between different types of “weapons”. In the recent situation of police officer Kim Potter, I heard the reporter say Ms. Potter had meant to deploy her Taser & instead grabbed her “weapon”. Which weapon? I took him to mean her pistol. Police carry a bunch of weapons; ie: baton, pepper spray, Taser, service pistol. We heard the word “weapon” used interchangeably with the word “gun” at least twice in newscasts, on April 13 and April 15. While it’s unlikely that listeners were confused, it is a truism in journalism that the more precise your language, the more likely it is that your meaning will be clear. A weapon can be anything from a nuclear warhead to a steak knife.  In newswriting, we try to avoid repeating the same words over and over, because it sounds tedious. The best synonyms are those that are equally precise and recognizable. So “pistol,” “gun,” “Glock” and “9mm” are all accurate and specific. — Kelly McBride Spotlight On The Public Editor spends a lot of time examining moments where NPR fell short. Yet we also learn a lot about NPR by looking at work that we find to be compelling and excellent journalism. Here we share a line or two about the pieces where NPR shines. The Picture Show Brian Skerry/National Geographic THE PICTURE SHOW Photos: The Culture Of Whales NPR’s photo story section, The Picture Show, has been a haven for wonder and inspiration, profundity and power. Recently, it featured a story about the culture of whales, along with a short corresponding Morning Edition piece. The photos by National Geographic photographer and explorer Brian Skerry are stunning, and the words tell the intimate tales of the lives of whales. The Picture Show also highlighted the magnificent hair art of the Bronner Bros. International Beauty Show and portraits of perseverance with artists from Brooklyn’s House of Yes. These stories show us the people, places and pictures that we may not otherwise see. — Kayla Randall Selenidad AFP Contributor/AFP via Getty Images NPR MUSIC Selena At 50: Preserving And Protecting A Precious Legacy Much has been written about Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the popular Tejano music star who — even after her murder in 1995 — continues to be beloved and idolized by fans (disclaimer: me included). On what would have been her 50th birthday, NPR Music published a deep dive into the singer’s legacy. Culture critic Deborah Paredez, who wrote a book about Selena in 2009, gives readers a better understanding of “Selenidad,” a term she coined years ago to describe the singer’s dynamic afterlife. Fans can appreciate this piece. And for those who know little about Selena, NPR Music delivers a timely primer on why she’s still remembered by the Latino community. — Amaris Castillo The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Researchers Amaris Castillo and Kayla Randall make this newsletter possible. We are still reading all of your messages on Facebook, Twitter and from our inbox. As always, keep them coming. Kelly McBride NPR Public Editor Chair, Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute Kelly McBride, Public Editor Kayla Randall, NPR Amaris Castillo, Poynter Institute The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR's board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience, striving to both listen to the audience's concerns and explain the newsroom's work and ambitions. The office ensures NPR remains steadfast in its mission to present fair, accurate and comprehensive information in service of democracy. 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