“They were dealing with his death and the trial and all that,” recalls Tony Coleman, one of the Oakland activists who led the protest movement following Grant’s death. “They would show up and thank people for their efforts, but they weren’t being called upon to speak on behalf of the movement.” Grant’s single mother, a UPS worker, probably didn’t have a great civil rights lawyer on speed-dial. And, perhaps, they formed a less enticing picture for the press than Martin’s decidedly middle-class family. “Trayvon’s family—they were nice, churchgoing people,” says Van Jones, a civil rights activist and attorney who has served as an advisor to President Obama. “They were both nicely employed—there were some Rosa Parks elements there.”

Perhaps Trayvon Martin’s death, with its absence of witnesses and crackly 911 call, provided a more interesting topic for talking heads than the YouTube videos of Oscar Grant’s death in front of a train full of observers. And the enigma of Zimmerman, a racist vigilante or a rash good samaritan, provided the perfect character for the press and activists to project their anger onto. The National Black Churches Initiative, which organized many of the protests following the Zimmerman verdict (he was acquitted earlier this month), issued its first statement after Zimmerman told Fox news that Martin’s death was part of God’s plan. “It was clear we were dealing with someone who was trying to justify killing an innocent child,” says church leader Rev. Anthony Evans. As Jelani Cobb wrote in The New Yorker, “Were the elements of the Trayvon Martin story—the plaintive cry for help punctuated by a gunshot; the image of Martin, seventeen and looking young for his age, in a football jersey; the iced tea and Skittles he carried—not so indelible, the events would seem like something from a Tom Wolfe.”

We’ve largely acknowledged and accepted that homicide coverage centers on the affluent and white, although 50 percent of murder victims and 40 percent of missing persons are black. Historically such stories fall to the specialty press, such as Homicide Watch, or African American news outlets, like TV One, which airs Find Our Missing. Anderson Cooper took to his blog a few years back to argue that the coverage gap isn’t caused by malicious intent, but presupposition of intrigue. “I’ve seen plenty of stories fall by the wayside, pushed down and out of the show, because a consensus develops that says, ‘You know, I don’t think our viewers are very interested in this case,’” he wrote. Writers have proven their interest in Trayvon Martin with a nearly insatiable appetite for commentary and trial updates, but it’s unclear if our news judgment will hold when it comes to the next, potentially less perfect, case.

This weekend, in the New York City movie theater where I watched Fruitvale Station, there were shocked gasps when the film got to the surprise ending that I was braced for: After being convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Johannes Mehserle spent only 11 months in prison. Four years from now, we will likely remember the injustice of the Zimmerman verdict—the question is, will we hear about the next Trayvon Martin?

TAGS: , , ,

Alexis Sobel Fitts is an assistant editor at CJR. Follow her on Twitter at @fittsofalexis