Rice verdict gets less play, more context on cable news
What was surprising was that CNN and MSNBC, at least, did a decent job of contextualizing and connecting the not-guilty verdict to the larger stories of the day in advance of the ruling by Judge Barry G. Williams.
CNN's “New Day” had co-host Chris Cuomo, who was in Baton Rouge, interviewing DeRay Mckesson, who was in Baltimore, about police-community relations and the Black Lives Matter movement. Mckesson stressed what he termed the need for “procedural justice” during the interview, a reference to the lack of convictions for police officers.
MSNBC, meanwhile, had Newt Gingrich on “Morning Joe” talking about urban policing issues with Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland and onetime chair of the Republican National Committee.
Gingrich was pushing the right-wing analysis that the crisis in police-community relations in urban American today is the result of decades of failed Democratic leadership in big cities. When Steele questioned the former speaker of the House, Gingrich shot back by asking when a Republican was last elected to the Baltimore City Council.
Once Williams delivered the three not-guilty verdicts on Rice, MSNBC gave it the most immediate coverage, with chief legal correspondent Ari Melber offering analysis.
“Marilyn Mosby's prosecutor's office is failing to convict on any of the charges,” he said. “This today is another strike and blow to the prosecution.”
The good news on MSNBC's coverage: For once, it did not use file footage from last year's riots. Last month, in reporting the not-guilty verdict for Caesar Goodson, the channel used footage from the 2015 riots with a “Happening Now” banner on the screen.
The channel stuck with still photographs Monday of Rice entering and leaving court during the trials.
Good choice. If you don't have it, don't fake it.
As has been the case through most of the Gray coverage, the best and most thorough TV coverage was again on local TV. WBAL, WJZ and WBFF were live at 10 a.m. waiting for the verdict.
WJZ's Marcus Washington, at Pennsylvania and North avenues, had one of the best interviews I saw anywhere.
“Nobody cares about this community,” a man he identified as Perry Bailey Jr. said, explaining his feelings as to how the trials are playing out.
Local TV was not as strong, however, in connecting the dots between the verdict and Baton Rouge and Trump's calculated law-and-order focus in Cleveland.
It is hard to criticize the national cable channels for not providing the kind of on-the-ground coverage that Baltimore stations did, given the two major national stories.
Major resources were moved to Cleveland last week for the GOP convention that started Monday. And then came the shooting in Baton Rouge on Sunday.
Cable TV relied on local TV coverage much longer than usual Sunday as it scrambled to redeploy for the latest shocking event in what has become a summer of violence, death, protest and pain in American cities.
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