Raise your hand if you think you can guess what my beef is with this story.
I will give you a hint. Count how many times the story mentions that the incident occurred in Southeast (5) as opposed to the Capitol Hill neighborhood where the incident actually occurred (1).
To be fair, Capitol Hill is technically in the Southeast quadrant of the city but you kind of get the feeling that isn't why they were so adamant about peppering "SE" comments and captions throughout the segment.
If anyone from ABC News 7 is watching let me suggest renaming this segment, "Rock Throwing Incidents Reported in
Unless of course, there was a specific reason that the powers that be at ABC 7 News thought it was more important (or 'newsworthy') to keep reiterating that this incident occurred in Southeast- as opposed to just being specific (and much more accurate) by stating that this incident occurred in... Capitol Hill! Heaven forbid that anyone thinks anything criminal or inconvenient ever happens in Capital Hill. Just lump it all together with Southeast - who would care?
Perhaps all the local news stations can just save themselves the time and expense in producing these biased and sensationalized stories and just cut to the chase - just post a screen shot of a skull and crossbones that just says, "Southeast - where everything bad happens in the District".
I guess we know why the average District resident thinks that all of Ward 8 is Anacostia and can't name two neighborhoods in all of "Southeast".
Local news stations - it's time to do better.
UPDATE: Now I am really annoyed. It seems this incident occured in Northeast. WUSA 9 reports on this incident in, "Man Captures Rock Attack On Video".
11 Comments:
I have really begun to hate watching the news. I have said it once and I will say it again. Southeast is in need desperate need of a marketing campaign to combat the flood of negative stories that are often over exagerated or overly broad about "southeast".
Is there any wonder why some of us prefer to use the term River East because main stream media is so intent on turning "southeast" and "east of the river" into something negative.
advoc8te: look, i hear you, and i can't stand it when the news focuses on the negative stories, but two points here.
1) when i watched this, the first thing they mentioned was "capitol hill." after that, i didn't notice them saying 'southeast' or anything else about where it happened. i had "capitol hill" ingrained in my head, and that colored the rest of the report for me.
2) the local news stations always say "southeast," "northeast," "northwest" when doing news stories, instead of "congress heights," "brookland," or "tenleytown." i think there are two reasons for that.
one of those is that most of their viewership is in the 'burbs, and those people don't know neighborhood A from neighborhood B from a hole in the ground, so it would probably just confuse them to give neighborhood names.
secondly, i think they're scared of being wrong, and being called out about it. the fact is, there are some neighborhoods where it's squishy where one ends and the next begins. take brookland and woodridge in NE for example. i have a friend that lives at 20th and kearny, and people go back and forth as to whether that's in brookland or woodridge (i say woodridge—everything east of 18th is NOT in brookland).
anyway, since they don't want to be called out for getting a neighborhood wrong, generally, they just don't use the neighborhood name at all.
anyway, i'm with you that there are great things about parts of town that aren't west of rock creek. don't count on the local news changing their stripes anytime soon, though. it'll save your blood pressure!
Hi Imogh! Thanks for your input. My thoughts...
1) I think living here you really become more aware of how often SE is used to describe an entire quadrant of the city. Perhaps we are sensitive or the flip side is perhaps the rest of the city is not sensitive enough because they don't live here but we notice it and most often the need to say SE is usually to sensationalize a negative story. You are most likely to see a non SE neighborhood name posted than a SE or Ward 8 neighborhood name posted.
2) The title of the report and the "SE Neighborhood" captions was just lazy at best. Instead of "Rock Throwing Incidents Reports in SE Neighorhood" . Perhaps "Rock Throwing Incidents Reported in Capital Hill or Hill East". Better still perhaps leave the SE quadrant out of the title all together like WUSA news did. The focus of the story should have been on the rock throwing - which sucks and not the fact that the incident may or may not have been in a "SE neighborhood" (which shouldnt automatically suck). I think the outraged would not have been compromised by clarifying the neighborhood the incident occured.
3) In terms of writing stories for "clarity" for those living in the suburbs I am going to have to go back to my feeling that if you are going to be reporting news in the District you should be familiar with the District and most times when it comes to Ward 8 most news stations aren't. I can't think of how many times we see news stories referencing something that happend in Congress Heights or Washington Highlands or in Ward 8 in general as "Anacostia". At some point "Anacostia" became the catch all for all of Ward 8 and that is not only lazy reporting it's wrong and it's does a disservice to other neighborhoods in these communities. I can't think of one time I have ever heard someone say "Dupont Circle in Columbia Heights" but you will hear quite often "Congress Heights in Anacostia" or references to Anacostia as if it is the name of the entire Ward. Take for example St. Elizabeths. If you were to stop 10 people on the street and ask them where St. Elizabeths is or where the department of Homeland Security is being relocated you will most likely get the answer "Anacostia" (at best)although St. Elizabeths is actaully in Congress Heights. Perhaps it is small and not the end of the world but that ads to the misperception of this area and is a big part of the reason that "SE" or "Anacostia" has become the buzz word for crime and/or poverty. We are just asking for the same type of fair and accurate reporting you would expect and most likely do see when local news stations report on neighborhoods in the rest of the city.
If you don't think that this broad or sometimes inaccurate labeling doesn't have an effect on people's perceptions on this area of the city all you have to do is read some of those anonymous reader comments in these articles. They are racial, stereotypical and most often based not in fact but perceptions derived from inaccurate and often over exagerated media reports.
If someone doesn't call them on it then nothing is going to change.
I think it's time we call them on it.
Another point. I probably receive about 5 emails a day from people/organizations or media outlets based in DC but don't live in Ward 8. Despite the fact that the blog title is "Congress Heights on the Rise" almost all of those emails reference "Anacostia" as if Anacostia and Ward 8 are the same thing.
If you were to the Washington Post Blog directory you will find allof these neighborhood names for other parts of the city. The only neighborhood name for Ward 8 is "Anacostia" and they expect all of the Ward 8 blogs to list themselves under "Anacostia". I mentioned this to a reporter from the WashPo and she promised she woudl bring it up to the powers that be to see if perhaps they could incorporate some Ward 8 neighborhood names but to me that should have automatically been the case. I used to have my blog listed there but frankly it troubled me that the Washington Post one of the largest newspapers in the country and definetly in the District hadn't considered updating their roster to include Ward 8 neighborhoods -despite the fact that we have such a large number of River East blogs that update their blogs frequently if not daily.
forgot to mention - I took my blog off of the directory because I didnt want to perpetute the mislabeling. Congress Heights is not in Anacostia - its a neighborhood on it's own and deserves the disctintion.
advoc8te: i agree with you on everything. i'm not trying to defend the news stations. laziness seems to be their M.O. we don't get it in ward 5 as bad as you do in ward 8, but it seems like every time there is bad news up in this neck of the woods, they have an epithet that's almost as bad as lumping everything together as "anacostia," and that's "trinidad."
of course, i live in trinidad, so i'm fighting the perception in a couple ways. when something bad happens at 21st and M, for example, i have to point out to people that's not trinidad, it's carver-langston. anyway, people eventually just tell you to shut up and not worry about the picky things.
i think we both know that when news orgs. don't take the time to get the picky things right, it's more than likely that they might be getting the big picture things wrong as well.
keep up the good fight!
IMGoph I agree with you 100%! I think they are missing a lot of things. I also have a friend that lives in Trinidad and if I were to believe everything I saw on the news I would assume he was sleeping in his bathtub from all the negative news reports. Trinidad is another really beautiful neighborhood that is getting the short end of the stick - in the media anyway.
Since when is Stadium/Armory Capitol Hill? (And it's Capitol with an O). By that same geography, Petworth is Dupont Circle.
Not trying to be snotty, just I think it's kind of a wide net cast which doesn't do anyone any good.
I'm the guy mentioned in the article.
You all raise some interesting points.
First off, Stadium Armory is in Capitol Hill, and has been considered so since well before RFK or the National Guard Armory was built. Most of the housing around me (including mine was built in the 1920s, as was Eastern High School, which moved there from it's earlier location near Eastern Market. The residents here, both old and new, consider themselves part of the Hill.
Next up, I never say that I live in "southeast" for the simple reason that I live a block away from north east. Capitol Hill, or more specifically Hill East, is a much more descriptive term for my neighborhood. I have a lot more in common with residents a few blocks away in NE, than I do with my fellow Washingtonians in your neck of the woods. But I don't associate any pejorative label with southeast; to me it's a simple geographic identifier that is not a accurate as Hill East.
Which is perhaps germane to the story as a whole. The students involved most likely come from a school in NE, walk down to my block in SE, and board the Metro. They don't go from one neighborhood to another, they go from one quadrant to another.
Anyway, interesting angle I hadn't thought about and thanks for bringing it up.
Thanks Tim for your comments they were very informative. For me it is just further proof that when reporting the news it is important to be accurate and as specific as possible. If there is not a standard DC map with neighborhood boundaries there should be.
P.S. What happened to you was horrible and I hope the police catch the people who did it and they are punished.
I think, according to the real estate divisions, I'm in Old City #2, whatever the heck that means.
Thanks for the sentiment, but as annoying and frustrating as it was, I've been very impressed with how energetically my neighbors, both old and new; DCPS; and MPD have been taking it, even before it showed up in the media. It's very reassuring, in that I didn't always see that from my city government ten, or even five, years ago.
Now if we can get Metro on board...
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