The deadly shooting of a teenager by a local police officer in a small suburb of St. Louis has turned into a story of defiance and local racial conflict revealed to the rest of the world by professional journalists, working alongside citizens using social media.
At the same time, journalists — how they reported and how they were treated–became a large part of the Ferguson story. That has invited a different sort of scrutiny and criticism from audiences and within the profession.
As part of a national gathering of journalists Friday at the Excellence in Journalism conference in Nashville, reporters who have been “on the ground” in Ferguson, MO, shared their recollections and opinions about the coverage of the riots and responses to the shooting.
Missourinet’s Bob Priddy led a panel of reporters: Elise Hu (NPR), Robert Brooks (Radio One), and Gregg Leslie (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press) at the Excellence in Journalism Conference 2014.
RTDNA conference leaders are considering continuing this discussion at next year’s Excellence in Journalism Conference in Orlando.
