This research studies the social construction of race and class, by the mainstream U.S. news media, in their coverage of the Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King. It examines all of the news reports in "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post", from the date of the beating, March 3, 1991, to the verdict in the first trial of King's assailants, April 29, 1992. It finds that a dominant news frame articulated the parameters of acceptable thought - that the beating was neither an aberration nor a reflection of deep-seated societal codes of racism, but instead a problem of a troubling pattern within the Los Angeles Police Department. (Résumé de la revue)