Protests or riots? Media wages war for control of narrative: Bias Breakdown
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Jun 17, 2025
As people took to the streets of LA following arrests by ICE, media outlets are again at odds over how to categorize the demonstrations.
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When does a protest cross the line and become a riot
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And why is it so hard for the media to objectively cover? The media downplays the violence and the mayhem because they support the cause
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You know, our eyes, we can see the destruction, but their mouths are trying to get into our ears, telling us it's mostly peaceful
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But there's no better persuasion than the visual. Fox News has been using the image basically like wallpaper
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You can see a lot of the examples there to depict the city of L.A. in a state of complete chaos
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They don't want you to see what you see on the screen right now. They want you to see chaos and violence
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While events in L.A. have reignited the debate, it's nothing new. News outlets on the left and right often frame protests in recent years according to their political belief
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especially when those protests turn violent. More often than not, the issue at the center of these demonstrations will determine how biased media cover it
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Welcome to Bias Breakdown. Join Straight Arrow News, see the slant, avoid the bias
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When others skew the facts, we give you the truth down the center. Welcome to Bias Breakdown
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Today's protests, and you can see some of the footage, and we've been tracking this, are overwhelmingly peaceful across the city there
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Anti-immigration riots now have spread from coast to coast. Agitators, criminals as I call them, are violent and clashing with law enforcement
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Left and right-leaning media have chosen their preferred verbiage in describing what's been happening on the ground in L.A
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Let's start with there's protest, lawful protest, which is allowed in this country
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There is some unrest. If you're watching television and you see a banner on TV that's still calling the riots anti-ice protest
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change the channel immediately because you are being lied to. And now it's a full blown battle between the media over who's accurate in their categorization
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Democrats are covering up the riots like Biden's brain. I didn't see violence is the new I didn't see Biden decline
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The whole country sees violence on their TVs, on their phones. The overwhelming majority of protesters in Los Angeles have been peaceful
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You, of course, would not know that from watching Fox News, which has been breathlessly covering the protests like a scene on a Robocop
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Banners proclaiming rioters wreak havoc in L.A. Rallies, demonstrations, riots, if you will
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I wouldn't go far as to call it that. Yeah, that's exactly right, Terry. If you look behind me, it sort of looks like Fallujah, but it's not, it's really not that bad
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And likewise in national headlines, the narratives diverge. news outlets with a left political bias like the New York Times the Washington Post Associated Press and more generalize the events as protest while news outlets on the right like the New York Post the Daily
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Wire, Breitbart, among others, broadly categorize them as riots. So let's talk about the definition of a riot
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I know it may seem silly or grade school, but it's relevant for our conversation
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These are discussions we've had here at Straight Arrow in recent days, as we work to cover
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the story fairly. First, the definition. Let's pull up our Merriam-Webster dictionary
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The term is defined as a violent public disorder. But what you may not have known is states and the federal government
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have their own way of further defining a riot for legal purposes and penal codes
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So in California, a riot is any use of force or violence disturbing the public peace
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involving two or more people. And the federal government defines a riot as a public disturbance
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involving an act of violence by one or more persons and whose actions result in damage or injury to property
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All definitions have in common violence and disturbing the peace. When it comes to choosing how to classify a demonstration as a protest or a riot
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protest is a softer term to use, while riot has a negative connotation
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Sometimes the terms can be used improperly by the media as a form of bias
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to shape public perception of a current event. So let's talk about a few examples
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Protesters and federal agents clashing in Southern California over recent ICE arrests
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This video showing the violent confrontations outside a federal building in downtown LA
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This is the second day of chaos and vandalism. ABC News led their coverage talking about protesters
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and then discussed violent confrontations, chaos and vandalism. But by definition, those would be actions of rioters
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Same for NBC News' coverage. Take a listen. The protesters taking over one of L.A.'s busiest freeways, bringing traffic Sunday to a standstill
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Crowds above throwing rocks and incendiary devices at officers. Later, we watched as protesters vandalized multiple Waymo self-driving vehicles that got stuck in the chaos
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Things are escalating now. Protesters have lit two Waymo self-driving cars on fire
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You can see the flames here. So again, throwing objects at officers, setting cars on fire
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In these cases, riot terminology might have been more fair and perhaps more accurate
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But we can flip the script and see the same sort of shying away from right-leaning networks
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when it came to coverage of January 6th. And we've all been sort of tracking the escalation of this
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Now, look at what you've got now. You have protesters inside the Capitol building
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Both House and Senate are in recess amid protesters breaching the Capitol building
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However, people breaching the Capitol was unlawful and also met the definition of rioters
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And just as we hear the most peaceful argument from left outlets over what happening in LA right now some right outlets also took that position over the event of January 6th I think a lot of folks forget that They see the riots they see some of the footage from that day
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and they see kind of the worst aspects of that day, but those worst aspects only took place over
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a few hours later on in the day. For the most of that day, it was a family celebration
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Let's just take a beat here and have a real conversation about this. I don't want it to
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seem like I'm tiptoeing the line or not calling it like it is. But let's zoom out away from the
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political issues at hand and be honest. It's not fair to lump in Joe Schmoe holding a poster with
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rioters, just like how it's not right to categorize the man looting and destroying a local business
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next door as a protester. And by saying largely peaceful protest, does that preface, dismiss
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or understate the seriousness of the rioting that does occur? Or by blanketing all of the
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demonstrations as riots, is that unfair to the people who properly came out and exercised their
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First Amendment rights? Is that really the full picture? So if you take the politics out of these
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situations, which can be hard to do, and ask these questions, then you can see there is a balancing
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act at hand for a journalist? In order to have unbiased coverage, you can't allow your own biases
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to blind you to one side when you're only seeing what you want to see, which sometimes we see play
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out. So as maddening as it may seem to someone who wants me to condemn one side or the other
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here's the truth. Two things can be true. There can be peaceful protests, and sometimes they can
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even be mostly peaceful. But here's the thing. It's important for the narrative to not overlook
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actions from agitators and rioters and to properly cover and distinguish those incidents as riots
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You don't want to condone it by ignoring it, even when it makes your political side
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not look very good. That's why you have democratic leaders right now begging people not to riot
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not to loot because they don't want the attention on the riots. They want it on the ICE raids
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the issue at hand. And that's why you had Republicans so let down by the visuals on January 6th
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because the day was no longer about what was written on their poster boards
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This debate may feel similar to a national conversation that we had just a few years ago
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Let's flash back to the summer of 2020 after the death of George Floyd
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Protests and riots over racial injustice flooded the streets and the news cycle
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Today marked another day of mostly peaceful protests in cities and towns across the country
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as demonstrators call for change in the wake of George Floyd's death
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Without a doubt violent rioters looters arsonists who are capitalizing on the horrific death of George Floyd are sick They twisted individuals that should be locked up for a very long time The news coverage is largely summed up in similar fashion to what we seeing
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today in L.A., left outlets deeming demonstrations as mostly peaceful and right outlets calling them
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riots. And just as the labeling has sparked a feud in the media today, the same happened in 2020
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with CNN scrutinized over its on-screen characterization of events. A quick caption reading, fiery but mostly peaceful protests
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What you're seeing behind me is one of multiple locations that have been burning in Kenosha
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Wisconsin over the course of the night, a second night. If cars and buildings are being set on fire, by definition, it's no longer peaceful
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CNN's lower third is biased by downplaying the destruction and only covering one side
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the side that aligns with its political bias. Here's some data that documents media bias over the issue
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After the 2020 unrest, the media watchdog group All Sides shared an ysis of how often
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outlets use the words riot versus protest in headlines. They found that left-leaning media outlets were far less likely to use riot
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while right-leaning media used it more frequently. And left-leaning outlets used protest and headlines significantly more than right-leaning ones
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All sides suggested the split is due to political biases. The racial justice issues at the time was largely important to those on the left
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and propped up by left media. While looting that summer was largely the focus of the rights coverage
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as you can see by these two bar graphs showing disproportionate coverage
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Allsides summed it up with this. After the 2008 financial crash, it was said the United States had the most advanced capitalism
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so it also had the most advanced failures. This truth extends to our news
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We have the most advanced media, so we also have the most advanced propaganda
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And that's your bias breakdown. Thank you for watching this week's episode. We actually had someone write in to us asking if this would be a topic we would cover on Bias Breakdown and thought it was absolutely a great fit given just how much the narratives have diverged and continue to do so
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It's such a good example of how media biases really can shape public perception over an important story
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so if you like this episode you can easily find all of our stories on spotify
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apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast we're trying to break through in a crowded
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space here so any likes and love you show to our podcast i would really appreciate some of you who
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watch us on youtube have commented that you share our podcast with friends and family and i love to
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hear that so thank you so much for trusting me and telling the news a little differently here
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And as always, especially this week, thank you so much to Ian Kennedy and Allie Caldwell
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who work hard to build out the visuals for us. Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time
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