Civil rights activist Al Sharpton and many in the media are "not interested in peace" when they descend on an incident, like the shooting death of Michael Brown, said Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center.
Graham told
Newsmax TV's "America's Forum" that they instead view the situation as an "opportunity" to tell "racist America that they are deeply racist, and that we are not going to take it anymore."
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"It's simply that they're not interested in peace," Graham said Thursday. "The Sharpton agenda is always, no justice, no peace. So, when you bring hundreds of television cameras to a community like this, do you think that the result is going to be peace?"
The media early on created a "narrative" that the shooting of Brown by police Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, was "evil racist white cop shoots innocent unarmed black youth." He said that was the element that made the story "newsworthy," and when facts were revealed that contradict that, the media was "unhappy with it."
When the new facts do not fit the established narrative, Graham said it ends up getting presented as "new information, and you should regard it with suspicion." He said the interest among Brown's supporters was to continue to tell the story that "America's a deeply racist country."
While admitting that incidents do take place because of racism, Graham said the media was "trying to present it as utterly typical, that this is something that happens in every town in America," to which he added, "No, it does not."
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