BBG Watch Commentary

VOA News Report July 8 2016 ScreenshotU.S. taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA) in its late and inadequate reporting on the shootings of African American men by the police and the later shootings of police officers in Dallas, TX kept misidentifying one of the police officers who killed the African American driver in Minnesota as being white even though many news reports identified him as not being white. Reuters is reporting that the police officer may be of Mexican descent.

While the race or ethnicity of the Minnesota police officer should not be a relevant factor one way or another under any circumstances, such careless reporting by the Voice of America contributes to the erroneous impressions abroad about the United States, considering that many people in the U.S. and abroad unfortunately still hold deep prejudices on issues of race and ethnicity and, in other cases, issues of religion, gender and sexual orientation.

If these VOA reports are read online in the U.S., they may even in some cases add to racial tensions and endanger peoples’ lives.

VOA Report Comment Screen Shot 2016-07-08 at 4:12 PM ET
VOA Report Comment Screen Shot 2016-07-08 at 4:12 PM ET

One visitor to to the VOA News website left this comment: “VOA, your quote above, “to protest the slayings elsewhere of two black men by white police officers”..the Minnesota shooting was described as being committed by an Asian officer. Get your facts correct.”
 

ALSO SEE: Voice of America improves police shootings coverage after director intervenes but still lags behind other media, BBG Watch, July 8, 2016

 

ALSO SEE: Voice of America was not updating Facebook news page during key hours of Dallas crisis, BBG Watch, July 8, 2016

 
 
 

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