Have you seen and heard CNN’s “Trump Rocks Cleveland” spot? My first reaction was: “Since when did you go beyond handing this candidate free exposure every time he made outlandish remarks to become his pro bono advertising agency?”
Then I saw a spot on a local Dallas news channel with fast-paced dramatically edited coverage of the street cop killings set to dramatic music. This time I thought: “Is this hype necessary right now?”
After analyzing the TV coverage of recent protests, demonstrations, shootings and terrorist attacks, I believe that endless dramatic images of potentially volatile events are likely to reinforce previous biases and positions, and that constant repetition of those images eventually will increase anger which often can lead to violent behavior in a significant number of people. And at minimum, all this is likely to produce greater polarization, wider divisions, and a climate that makes constructive collaboration almost impossible.
Of course, TV news is not the only villain. Many politicians, pundits, protest leaders, and angry citizens are at fault too. But have we not reached the point where we can at least ask that the TV coverage intensity of potentially volatile events be significantly lowered in favor of more basic matter-of-fact reporting?
And is it also not time for national and local media to focus more on reporting about groups with constructive solutions and the community leaders who are proposing them?
Larry D. Lauer 
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