Well, MediaHerd has no way of proving that, but it certainly seems that way based on an article published today by Manny Fernandez entitled “In Bell Case, Black New Yorkers See Nuances That Temper Rage.” Loyal readers of this blog will remember MediaHerd’s observations on Friday concerning media herd reporting of the acquittal of 3 officers of all charges stemming from the death of Sean Bell. Basically, the media herd forgot about the great national discussion Sen. Obama started on race a few weeks ago and went back to reporting one of its favorite stereotyping storylines – that black people are incapable of expressing a range of complex and mature emotions because they are too angry and emotional and prone to violence during high-profile trial verdicts.

Apparently the New York Times took a good look at MediaHerd’s observations and felt guilty about promoting this racial stereotype. Because today it reported the following:

There was anger on the streets of Jamaica, Queens, where Sean Bell was killed in a hail of 50 police bullets in 2006 — both before and after a judge on Friday acquitted three detectives who had been charged in the shooting. But many black men and women in Jamaica and elsewhere in New York said their anger was tempered by the complicated case that unfolded in a city less racially divided than 10 years ago.

In Harlem, Willie Rainey, 60, a Vietnam veteran and retired airport worker, said that he believed the detectives should have been found guilty, but that he saw the case through a prism not of race, but of police conduct. “It’s a lack of police training,” Mr. Rainey said. “It’s not about race when you have black killing black. We overplay the black card as an issue.”

Even near Liverpool Street and 94th Avenue in Jamaica, the very spot where Mr. Bell was killed, Kenneth Outlaw stood and spoke not only of the humanity of Mr. Bell but of the police as well. “A cop is a human being just like anyone else,” said Mr. Outlaw, 52. “If I had to be out here, facing the same dangers the cops face, I’d be scared to death too.”

…

Yet in the aftermath of the verdict in the Bell case, many black New Yorkers reacted not with outrage but with a muted reserve, saying that the city felt like a less polarized place in 2008, nearly a decade after the Diallo shooting and with a different mayor and police commissioner. Some also said that after a seven-week trial, the picture of what happened the night Mr. Bell, a black man, was killed was still murky, and so they left the public outcry to a relatively small group of black activists who had been closely monitoring the case.

Nice job folks! It’s good to see a balanced piece of reporting that does not promote racial stereotypes or give the impression that black people are unable to articulate a full range of difficult emotions about a troubling set of events.

Bottom Line: MediaHerd feels fortunate that it’s able to put a mirror in front of the “Paper of Record” and alert it to its stereotyping reportage on Friday. Perhaps the great national discussion will continue.