{"id":39553,"date":"2025-05-24T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T11:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39553"},"modified":"2025-05-25T15:55:50","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T15:55:50","slug":"5-years-after-george-floyds-murder-how-the-media-narrative-has-changed-around-the-killing-and-the-protests-that-followed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/5-years-after-george-floyds-murder-how-the-media-narrative-has-changed-around-the-killing-and-the-protests-that-followed\/","title":{"rendered":"5 years after George Floyd\u2019s murder: How the media narrative has changed around the killing and the protests that followed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Danielle K. Brown<\/a>, Michigan State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the evening of May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered<\/a> by police outside a grocery store in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the outset, the incident became a battle of narratives. The local police initially reported Floyd was experiencing \u201cdistress<\/a>\u201d and died from a medical incident. A day later, bystander Darnella Frazier uploaded a video<\/a> that showed the graphic details, including the police\u2019s excessive use of force leading up to Floyd\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Floyd\u2019s murder, and Frazier\u2019s documentation of it, spawned what by some measures was the largest protest movement<\/a> in American history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that, too, became a contest of narratives, this time in the media<\/a>. A focus on the aftermath of the events in Minneapolis, and elsewhere, were quickly supplanted by stories of lawlessness and violence by protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For almost a decade, I\u2019ve researched the media\u2019s coverage of protests<\/a>, focusing extensively on the reporting of modern-day uprisings against police brutality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time<\/a> and time<\/a> again<\/a>, colleagues and I have found that the bulk of news coverage of protests against police brutality tends to focus on protesters\u2019 violence, disruption or sensational actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Protesters hold up their illuminated phones as they block a road beneath a highway in Missouri in June 2020. AP Photo\/Jeff Roberson<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yet in reading some of the coverage ahead of the fifth anniversary of Floyd\u2019s death, I have observed a different media trend. With the benefit of time, what was once a news media frenzy focusing on the violence<\/a> after Floyd\u2019s killing has yielded space for reflection<\/a> and coverage that legitimizes those who took to the streets<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In so doing, these narrative changes provide essential opportunities to understand the complexity of journalism and social movements seen from different moments in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following flames<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Quickly after Floyd\u2019s murder in 2020, it became clear that subjects such as the role of state violence, the sophistication of demands for change and community grief were less likely to make headlines<\/a> than things such as rioting and lawlessness<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This pattern is part of what scholars call a \u201cprotest paradigm<\/a>\u201d that explores the relationship between protests, media and the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paradigm holds that journalism often works against protest movements hoping to change the status quo. The news media\u2019s tendency to emphasize<\/a> the frivolous, violent or annoying actions of protests rather than the depth of protesters\u2019 demands, grievances and agendas negatively shapes public opinion and affects the public\u2019s willingness to support the movements behind them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Floyd\u2019s death, those closely following the coverage of conservative media were more likely to be exposed to stories<\/a> that depicted protests as \u201ccriminal mobs<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it wasn\u2019t just conservative media. On May 31, 2020, the local paper, the Star Tribune, described the governor\u2019s \u201cshow of strength<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a term used to describe the massive deployment of the Minnesota National Guard to help quell the \u201cdays of lawless rampage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most coverage at the time fit a familiar pattern of delegitimizing the protest movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With time and space, the pattern breaks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Five years later, some delegitimizing news coverage<\/a> continues to headline. The New York Post, for example, recently published a 13-minute documentary that suggests Minneapolis is still on fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a good portion of today\u2019s news also presents a different framing. In one five-year anniversary piece, The New York Times described George Floyd Square, the murder-site-turned-place-of-reverance for many activists and local residents, as a \u201csite of protest, art, grief and remembrance<\/a>.\u201d Another article in The Minnesota Star Tribune describes preservation efforts of street art and murals<\/a> made by activists after the murder. Other coverage described the complicated process of demanding change<\/a> and the path that remains ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A portrait of George Floyd painted on the pavement is at the center of a memorial surrounded by flowers, artwork and tributes outside a storefront at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 22, 2025. Photo by Kerem Yucel\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of course, these are selective snapshots of the coverage. And some media may shy away from covering the anniversary at all<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But from my standpoint as a media scholar, the coverage that does exist has gone from being dominated by an initial focus on the violent aspects of protest to, in the main, a more reflective look at the meaning \u2014 rather than the spectacle \u2014 of the unrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That legitimizing trend over time isn\u2019t an isolated phenomenon. My colleagues Rachel Mour\u00e3o<\/a> and George Sylvie<\/a> and I found something similar in previous research looking at<\/a> the protests that followed the killings of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012 and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our analysis of the protests following Brown\u2019s death, we observed that the first weeks of coverage focused more on protesters, delegitimizing frames and episodic news \u2013 that is, the disruption, destruction and arrests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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