Back in June I blogged about Columbia professor Marc Lamont Hill’s allegation that he was harassed by the Philadelphia police. It was reported last week that Hill now plans to sue the Philadelphia police department for the incident he describes in the tweets that appear at the end of the post.

The reporting on this story seems to be headed toward a Hero vs. Hip Hopper storyline. Most outlets have emphasized Officer Decoatesworth’s past heroic actions and subsequent invitation to a joint session of Congress in which he sat beside the first lady.

The above picture was run by Politico.com. In their article they elected NOT to run a picture of Hill at all; rather to refer to him as “another black Ivy League Professor” having a run in with the law, an allusion to Professor Henry Louis Gates’  run-in with a police officer in Cambridge which ended in the infamous “beer-summit” at the White House.

Sidebar: The paragraph comparing Hill and Gates is misleading. Gates didn’t file a Federal civil rights lawsuit nor was his incident with the Philadelphia police as the paragraph implies.

Nevertheless, the decision to run a photo of DeCoatesworth without running a photo of Hill is interesting as was the decision to emphasize DeCoatesworth’s achievements without mentioning who Hill is beyond a black professor.

The Philadelphia Inquirer article on the Hill lawsuit was better but one thing bothered me–they repeatedly referred to the incident as a traffic stop. I suppose this is factually correct as Hill was in his car and driving; however, Hill alleges that the police told him to move his car as he was dropping a friend off, and then after he dropped off his friend, the same police officer’s later stopped him and did not explain why.

That sounds like more than a “traffic stop” and the use of that language sort of downplays the whole thing. Maybe I’m being nitpicky?

I perused a few more sites and most seemed to either follow the Politico route of treating this like a non-story with more details about the cop than the professor–and others spending the bulk of the text explaining the incident. Almost all the sites referred to Hill and hip hop–I suppose that’s fair since lots of his work is centered around the musical genre.

At any rate, if Hill wants to win the media war in this one he has an uphill battle. I think this casting of him as an Ivy League hip hopper who is accusing an 24 year old hometown hero of acting completely and utterly reckless will probably continue–that is until more details are released and a new storyline emerges.

Obviously, journalists have to tell both sides of a story, and there’s no getting around the fact that DeCoatesworth is a hero. However, heroes can later make mistakes–something the general may not immediately recognize given the storyline.

As for Hill, I did note that his initial tweets didn’t sound as though the encounter was violent, so I was surprised to hear those details. That’s the downside of tweeting about something like this, you have to ask why he didn’t relay the juiciest part of the story the first time.