If you haven’t heard this meme yet, you might want to check your pulse: “He’s climbin’ in yo windows, he’s snatchin’ yo people up” or “So you can run and tell dat, homeboy”.   These are the words of Antoine Dodson of Huntsville, Alabama.  His sister was recently attacked in a attempted rape and WAFF-TV covered the story like any other.  Reports are now sprouting that some local African American residents are upset that this story even made it to air.  They believe it contained some kind of racial undertones that really smeared their local community to the country, and even the world.

Antoine is allowed the right to speak out, and media coverage could help catch his sisters attacker.  Media is a tool often employed by law enforcement when they want the communities help in catching an offender.  Why should it matter what color skin the victim has or what neighborhood it’s located in?

The news story was such a viral hit, it even has an autotune remix version that is tearing up the YouTube charts.

So how is the meme trending?  Let’s examine.

• On Google.com, searching for “Antoine Dodson” brings up 2.3 million results (Monday, 2:00 p.m. CT)
• “Antoine Dodson” reached as high as .04% of all Twitter posts on Sunday August 1st, 2010.
• The original video garnered over 3.5 millions views in just 4 days on YouTube.com
• The “autotune remix” of the video gained over 1.3 million views in just 3 days.

The point of the story is you can’t control the media, especially how it reflects on your community.  The media has a journalistic responsibility to cover stories, no matter how damaging they can possibly be.  However, journalistic integrity and sensitivity should reflect the story in the best way possible, but this can sometimes be clouded in the pursuit of ratings in competitive markets.

This story was a valid one with a purpose, to raise awareness about the crime and bring a criminal to justice.  Could WAFF-TV edited the footage to portray Antoine in a more favorable light?  Could they have had the reporter focus him more and get his point across in a slightly less animated fashion?  Perhaps.  You have to take the good with the bad when it comes to mainstream media.  It was a traumatic event and if it was your sister,  I bed your “Antoine” side would come out as well.  So, run and tell dat, HOMEBOY!