Atlanta‘s Trap Music Museum has pushed back, apparently successfully, against a local news story that linked the museum with a nearby shooting.
On Wednesday (January 17), local news outlet 11 Alive published an article about a fatal shooting in northwest Atlanta. According to the museum, the original headline read: “Deadly shooting kills 1 at house near Trap Music Museum, police say.”
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The linkage set off museum organizers, who sent out a since-deleted Instagram post with a statement and series of photos.
The first photo read: “This is how Black owned businesses get shut down.” The second featured a screenshot of the story’s headline. The third contained a Google Maps search, which showed that the museum was an eight-minute walk away from the site of the shooting. You can see the photos below.
The museum’s statement was billed as “An Open Letter To Atlanta Media Outlets.”
“This is why black businesses continue to get closed down!!! We are not a HEADLINE to your negative story!!! @ml115 @11alive,” the statement began.
“Despite these false narratives that are pushed by our city media and bad reporters, we’ve done a great job of being a pillar in our community! No incidents and no violence – @trapmusicmuseum has done nothing but uplift the community in a positive way through community clean ups, food/toy drives, mental health initiatives and other community based efforts in-which NO ONE seems to cover as much in the media.”
It continued: “We want to understand why our small black-owned business is always mentioned being near crimes associated in our ten block radius? There are so many other businesses, mega churches and arenas in the same radius but we are always singled out!
“We are Trap Music Museum, purposed to keep a record of Trap Music, an asset to our community and culture while bringing in tourism to our great city of Atlanta. How can we work together to no longer be the tagged location target when violent crimes happen in our community?”
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As of this writing, 11 Alive had changed the headline of the story to remove any mention of the museum. It now reads: “Atlanta shooting leaves 1 person dead, police say.” There is an editor’s note reading: “This headline and story has been updated to clarify and accurately describe the location of the scene.”
HipHopDX has reached out to the Trap Music Museum for further comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
