Civil rights activist Robert Woodson slams bias in racial violence coverage

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Cincinnati beating victim speaks out after brutal attack: Still recovering

Fox News Nate Foy reports the latest on the investigation into the viral Cincinnati brawl. The Outnumbered co-hosts also weigh in on the assault. 

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The mainstream media in America has an alarming "worldview that Black Americans are always innocent victims," according to a prominent author and social commentator. 

Robert L. Woodson Sr., who is Black and a longtime civil rights activist, penned an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, urging the nation to "disregard race in how we judge one another" before it leads to "national ruin." 

"When a mob violently attacked two people in downtown Cincinnati last [month], video of the beat-down spread across social media. But not a single major television network covered the story. It didn’t fit the mainstream media’s narrative about racial violence in America," Woodson wrote. 

"The victims were White, and as of Wednesday police had arrested six Black suspects for their alleged roles in the public pummeling," he continued. "Today’s media seems to conflagrate over violence only when the perpetrator is White and the victim is Black. Then the cameras roll, protests erupt, and hashtags fly."

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Robert L. Woodson Sr. feels the brutal Cincinnati attack didn’t fit the mainstream media’s narrative about racial violence in America. (Tricia Mackie / Fox 19 on X; X/@Anthea06274890)

The Media Research Center's NewsBusters analyzed ABC’s "Good Morning America" and "World News Tonight," "CBS News Mornings" and "Evening News," and NBC’s "Today" and "Nightly News" and found no coverage of the horrific viral brawl in Cincinnatti in the days immediately following the event. 

Woodson, who has authored multiple books, including "A Pathway to American Renewal: Red, White, and Black," believes that "the mainstream media buries the incident or ignores" violence when the races are reversed and in cases of "Black-on-Black" crime. 

"Consider the tragic case of Ariana Delane, the 4-year-old niece of George Floyd, who was shot and wounded while sleeping beside her grandmother as gunfire hit their apartment. Despite the horror of her story, it received nowhere near the national attention that followed her uncle’s death," Woodson wrote. "Both the girl and Floyd deserved to live in peace, yet there is national outrage when a Black man is killed at the hands of police but silence when Black children are the collateral victims of the senseless violence plaguing our cities every day."

Woodson added that "journalists mostly ignored" that Blacks were frequent perpetrators during a 2018 spike in violent incidents against Asian-Americans. 

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Robert L. Woodson Sr. (Woodson Center)

"The truth would have broken the media’s worldview that Black Americans are always innocent victims," he wrote. 

"We teach our children that to be Black is to be permanently victimized and that to be white is to be perpetually guilty," Woodson continued. "Americans should renounce any schema in which one race is guilty and another innocent. That is the path to national ruin." 

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(L-R) Jermaine Matthews, Dominique Kittle, DeKyra Vernon, Montianez Merriweather, Patrick Rosemond and Aisha Devaughn are facing various charges for their alleged roles in the viral beatdown in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 26, 2025. (Hamilton County Sheriff's Office; Fulton County Sheriff's Office; Jay Black)

Woodson also founded the Woodson Center, which aims to "empower community-based leaders to promote solutions that reduce crime and violence, restore families, revitalize underserved communities, and assist in the creation of economic enterprise," according to its website. 

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Fox News Digital's David Spector contributed to this report.