Criticism is often leveled at 13WHAM that we do not feature Black people or other people of color in our stories unless they are criminals. As a person of color myself, I am sensitive to this.
So, you can imagine my thoughts when I saw our report last night about two local Popeyes running out of chicken and the mayhem that ensued. My gut reaction was that the story--although a legitimate consumer complaintseemed to reinforce a cultural stereotype about Black people and chicken. I know for a fact that no one on our staff meant for that to be the point of the story, but the fear that we would be accused of this sounded an alarm to me. Its sad that I even had to worry about this.
The story was what it was: customers, who happened to be Black, expressing anger about a heavily advertised special that ran out. Our job as journalists is not to whitewash (sorry, no pun intended) the news. We arent here to manufacture, make up, or tamper with what exists so we ran the story. In hindsight, Im glad we did. Race aside, it is a perfect consumer story
and consumers have a right to be angry.