Whose side is the media on?

In lecture we have talked on multiple occasions about the Trayvon Martin case that is currently causing much debate. The way the story has been told has varied greatly, depending on where I get my information from. When I first heard it through word of mouth, it was simply: "Did you hear that a little black boy was walking home from the corner store with skittles and some white guy randomly shot him?" This sounds completely absurd, and I soon found that this was not the whole story. While people are still arguing back and forth about Trayvon trespassing and the Florida law that is preventing the shooter from being charged, I want to focus more on the media's representation of Trayvon.

When I was scrolling through my facebook newsfeed a week ago I saw a picture that someone had posted. I can't find the link back to it, but it showed the picture of Trayvon that the media was using: him smiling in a nice polo, and beside it was a picture of Trayvon, taller and seemingly older, flashing a gang sign to the camera. The caption read: "Trayvon Martin: age 13 - picture the media is using" under the first photo, and then under the second it read: "Trayvon Martin, current facebook profile picture."

Now I cannot be sure that this facebook posting is true, but it got me thinking: the image that the media gives has an extreme effect on how we view the subject. When I saw "Trayvon's current profile picture" it made me angry. I immediately changed my opinion of him, and then lost trust in the news sources that were feeding me the first picture. How can we be sure what we are given is real information? The country could be in outrage as a reaction to slandered information. This is why I will let my trust go to the courts. The Florida court will decide the issue, without the media's influence. It leads me to ask: Whose side is the media on? Well, I think the answer to that is: their own pockets. They want to sell as many newspapers, get as many viewers, or online hits as possible, and in order to do that they will often twist the truth to make a juicier story. I'm not saying that they are necessarily doing that in this case, I just think that we should be aware that there is definitely more than meets the eye in this case.

-Elle Callahan