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Media coverage of Mardi Gras events draws criticism at forum

Wednesday, March 21, 2001

By HECTOR CASTRO
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The media failed to provide leadership in its coverage of recent Mardi Gras violence, and the racial tension that has ensued.

That was one message delivered by a crowd of 200 to a panel of media representatives at a discussion held last night to examine whether the coverage of the violent event was fair, accurate or balanced.

  Violence at Mardi Gras
  • Previous coverage
  • Fat Tuesday photos
    • Most in the audience, an ethnically diverse crowd of men and woman, seemed to believe that it wasn't.

    "The youth are watching. What are you teaching them?" said Jennifer Madison when she addressed the panel.

    The public forum was organized by the Washington News Council, a non-profit media watchdog group, and held at Town Hall in Seattle.

    Panelists included Pat Costello, news director for King 5 TV; Ken Bunting, executive editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; John Carlson, KVI radio talk-show host; Dave Ross, KIRO radio talk-show host; James Kelly, president of the Urban League of Metro Seattle; and the Rev. Leslie Braxton, senior pastor at Mount Zion Baptist Church.

    Coverage of the Mardi Gras mayhem, which resulted in one death, more than 70 injuries, sexual assaults and vandalism, soon became cause for racial tension, but even those on the panel last night couldn't agree who first raised the issue of race. At one point, Costello said race never factored into the station's decisions on which images were aired.

    Many speakers and some panelists were unhappy in particular about a photograph that ran in the P-I on March 1. The photo, spread across the top of the Seattle and the Northwest section of the paper, depicts a group of black men beating a white man. A smaller photo below shows two white men vandalizing a car.

    "Why weren't the pictures all the same size?" Braxton asked.

    Bunting explained that it wasn't racism that fueled the decision, but news judgment. "The decision was made that here is a photograph that depicts the news story," Bunting said.

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