ABSTRACT
Journalism's inability to address the embedded structural problems that undergird contemporary social existence remains one of its fundamental weaknesses. In covering Gray's death and its aftermath, journalists' invocation of place-the practice of situating current events in a particular physical location-reflected an incapacity to situate what had happened against larger national patterns of segregation, and poverty. This analysis considers the mechanics of invoking place-here termed place-frames-in the news, specifically their role in obscuring explanatory clarity. For journalism, the reliance on place requires something of a retooling, because its temporal rather than spatial position has long been privileged as that which makes news distinct. The neighborhood of West Baltimore where Freddie Gray's detainment and death occurred provided the story's most immediate and proximate spatial context. While place-frames do not cause embedded inequities, they are a naturalized part of news discourse that exacerbate inequity, making it more pronounced and less obvious than it might otherwise be.
