Wesley Lowery spoke in Schwab Auditorium on October 18 to a nearly packed house full of students and faculty members. He read a piece of his own work and then the floor was opened for a question and answer session with the audience.
Lowery is a journalist for the Washington Post and has been focusing his work on the “Black Lives Matter” movement for the past few years. According to K. Biswas, “Images and reports from Ferguson produced by Lowery and others sparked a renewed national debate around policing and racial justice, giving impetus to the rallying cry “Black Lives Matter”, and a new social movement.”
Lowery has attended funerals, protests and everything in between to write his story and get the information out to people. He, along with some of his colleagues, has done extensive research into the statistics of police brutality and fatal shootings. It won him a Pulitzer Prize.
Nathalie Baptiste said in an article,
“To many, the Black Lives Matter movement started in August 2014, when protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, after a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager. But while the movement coalesced around the street marches in Ferguson and then spread to places like Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago, the declaration that supplied its name was coined considerably earlier: in 2013, shortly after George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin.”
When he began, Lowery read a piece he wrote while at the funeral of Jamar Clark. He wrote vivid details and about the things that Clark’s family and friends had to say about him and what kind of person he was. Clark was fatally shot by police but his name did not make national headlines unlike Martin and Michael Brown.
I view this as an ethical dilemma because I would find it very difficult to cover a funeral. Funerals are very emotional and reporting on them in the wrong way could offend the family and friends of the deceased person. If details are included that they are not comfortable with or do not approve of could cause an issue because it is a very difficult time of mourning and they may not fully understand the point in which the author was trying to get across.
Lowery also spoke about being out in the field and they things he has been an eyewitness to. I also find this to be an ethical dilemma because he spoke on behalf of protests, shootouts and other dangerous things he had encounter while doing his job.
I would personally have trouble covering things like that because I am not one to put myself in situations that make me uncomfortable or that would cross a line in anyway. He spoke about following police cars in order to report on a story in regards to the Boston Marathon bombing. He said that he had put himself in the most dangerous position of his career when that took place.
I found Lowery to be a very well spoken person, made very good points for each example he gave, along with very thought out answers to each question that was asked. I was able to learn that in order to get the information that is needed, I need to push myself out of my comfort zone and get everything I can in order to write my best work.
It is important to discuss this issue because it something that is happening right here in our country. Reporting on the Black Lives Matter movement is important because it is happening in America; therefore, it is newsworthy to the American people. When reporting on this movement, it is extremely important to report on it ethically because it is news that people will read all over the nation, and possibly, internationally.
Baptiste, Nathalie (2017). Origins of a Movement. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=b0d23d33-3525-4b75-82b4-41a3e7359a27%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=121215294&db=a9h
Biswas, K. (2017). Bleak day for black America. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=b0d23d33-3525-4b75-82b4-41a3e7359a27%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=121117984&db=a9h