Educational Media Reviews Online

As April 1992 drew to a close, the verdict of the Rodney King v. Los Angeles Police Department trial was announced, followed by several days of violence within a riot zone that stretched across LA and as far south as Long Beach, California. K-Town ’92 revisits this event from the perspectives of three journalists who were on the staff of the Los Angeles Times, who witnessed both the riots - and the handling of the news coverage - firsthand.

Hired as part of a deliberate effort by the LA Times to diversify their staff, this trio of reporters share candid recollections. Through their insights we learn about how internal biases influenced decisions and shaped the oversimplified narratives that were told, while the far more complex story of how and why the riots represented decades of built-up racial tension, ultimately remained unexplored.

Brief but impactful, this short is highly recommended, and appropriate for a wide range of ages and curricula including Sociology, Psychology, Racism, Discrimination, Criminal Justice, Social Movements, Activism, Ethics, African-American Studies, Latinx-American Studies, Korean-American Studies, and United States History. The film is comprised of interviews, historic news footage and audio recordings captured during the riots, and visits to the same locations twenty-five years later. Viewers come away with not just a sense of what it was like to be present during the tumult of this specific experience, but also how what was left unsaid then, remains critically relevant to discussions taking place in our society today.

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