People Against Racism
Case Study of a Racist Institution Coverage of the New Bethel Incident by the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, March 30 to April 3, 1969

“Along with the country as a whole, the press has too long basked in a white world, looking out of it, if at all, with white men’s eyes and a white perspective.”

Kerner Report, p. 389

The headline of the Free Press editorial of April 1 reads, “Keep Isolated Incidents Within Narrow Limits.” This is a typical example of the racist distortion of reality practiced by Detroit’s major newspapers. There is nothing isolated about assaults on the black community by the white police. There is nothing isolated about attacks on Judge George Crockett for dispensing true justice to black people.

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People Against Racism
The News—White Man’s Paper

“Along with the country as a whole, the press has too long basked in a white world, looking out of it, if at all, with white men’s eyes and a white perspective.”

—Kerner Report, p. 389

Although the media’s coverage of the New Bethel incident has been at best confusing and at worst rampant with racial hysteria, it is not exceptional.

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