San Juan Horseshoe

EDITORIAL October 2005:
Media forgot to report anti-war demonstration?

By Kevin Haley

(Washington) Powers at the top of the nation's fourth estate say they "forgot" to cover a massive anti-war protest that took place in Washington on September 24.

Calling the absence of coverage "an acute oversight", anti-war factions responded by suggesting that the mainstream media refused to report the event because it was not in their fiscal interest to do so.

The demonstration protesting ongoing U.S. military policy in Iraq received a dusting at best in the corporate media here in the land of the free. Despite an estimated outpouring, conservatively estimated 200,000 souls, there was little or nothing reported by the Associated Press, CNN, or the Denver Post. Even the Washington Post and New York Times, often accused as being too liberal by the neo-cons and their followers, buried what little write up there may have been next to the crossword puzzle or the late baseball scores

Within this framework, instead of featuring news coverage of the protests, these protectors of the First Amendment preferred to tell us about the new U.S. $10 bill, pit bull attacks in the Northeast, Bronco updates and a new reality TV program "Extreme Makeover" with Laura Bush.

"That's what people want to read about," said one CEO from the Chicago Tribune. "We determine what will go in the paper by a system of priority, and by grasping this rigid methodology it is easy for one to see how we might have skipped over this recent scene in Washington.""

"What demonstration? Where?" asked an investigative reporter from Fox Network.

Another new executive from ABC News explained that unless a political rally draws more than 300,000 "we don't consider it to be news worthy. It's just not relevant.

"That's our policy. We have to draw the line somewhere," she said. "Otherwise we'd be covering every public exhibition, every county fair, every meeting, every pack of radicals...We wouldn't have room to sell junk food or cell phones."

The Chicago Tribune source echoed the same song saying, "We don't feel that 200,000 people out in the streets making a spectacle of themselves is of interest to our readership."

So...the largest anti-war demonstration since the beginning of the illegal war on Iraq was ignored even though all those people came out to protest including some 250 military families and hundreds of veterans (some from the Iraq war).

Demonstrations were also held on that same day in London, Rome, Toronto and San Francisco. These received front page coverage everywhere else but here.

"What would it take to get the proper news coverage?" asked one protester. "Do we have to occupy the White House? I hear it's pretty vacant these days anyway. Don't the American people care what is being done in the name of their country?"

"The media is not afraid of the Bush Administration as it well should be," said another demonstrator. The owners of the papers and TV stations are, rather, right there in bed with Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush."

Although few suggest that the leaders of this country are capable enough to orchestrate a valid conspiracy to control the flow of information many feel that the corporate ownership of major media dictates what news is covered, what is spoon-fed fluff and what is dangerous, even subversive information.

In all fairness to the junta media, a pro-war rally, drawing up to 400 people, did not get a lot of coverage either. According to one mass media spokesman there wasn't room on the pages after printing the names of servicemen recently killed in Iraq (and they don't even fool with reporting how many Iraqis aren't around no mo')

Did you hear that Haliburton has been awarded another lucrative contract to rebuild New Orleans? I wonder what the Times-Picayune would say about that?

BACK

Website © Coyote Kiva.org 2005
To contact the webmaster