Tell Fox and Cops’ Advertisers to make Season 25 the Show’s last in Primetime
Rashad Robinson
Twenty-five years ago, George H.W. Bushs infamous Willie Horton ad1 and the media frenzy surrounding the crack epidemic2 combined to put a definitively Black face on the “War on Crime.” When brand-new TV network FOX was faced with a writers strike, owner Rupert Murdoch bet on an unscripted, super low-budget pilot3 that tapped into white audiences fears and preconceptions of Black criminality. The “reality” show COPS was born” and over the ensuing decades, the trendsetting series has radically altered what we see on TV.4