Whose Lives Matter: The Media’s Failure to Cover Police Use of Lethal Force Against Native Americans

Abstract

The August 9, 2014, police shooting of Michael Brown reinvigorated the Black Lives Matter movement and triggered widespread media scrutiny of police use of lethal force against African Americans. Yet, there is another group, Native Americans, whose members have experienced very high levels of fatal encounters with the police, but whose deaths arguably have not generated media attention. In this research, we tracked the numbers of African American and Native American deaths associated with police use of lethal force as well as fatalities in police custody following arrest from May 1, 2014, through the end of October 2016. Then, we examined the extent of mainstream media coverage given to these fatalities in the 10 highest circulation newspapers in the United States. Finally, we considered the reasons for the disparities between the two groups.