Entries tagged with “Daniel LaChance”

Dec 12, 2023

New Research Finds That Historical News Coverage Reduced Executed Black Men to ​“Faceless, Interchangeable Public Safety Hazards” While Executed White Men Were Portrayed As ​“Tragic Heroes”

In a recent­ly pub­lished aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cle, Emory University History Professor Daniel LaChance writes about an impor­tant and under­rec­og­nized dis­tinc­tion in the way news­pa­per edi­tors and jour­nal­ists cov­ered the exe­cu­tions of Black and white men in the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th cen­turies. Professor LaChance argues that the por­tray­als of the defen­dants made legal exe­cu­tions ​“a high-sta­tus pun­ish­ment that respect­ed the white­ness of those who suf­fered it.” While the length and detail of arti­cles about the exe­cu­tions of Black men shrank dra­mat­i­cal­ly over time, he notes that jour­nal­ists con­sis­tent­ly high­light­ed the…