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WORD COUNT
604
: MAY 27, 2009
10,000 AMERICAN MARCHERS ARE NOT NEWS – by William A. Collins
Print the
news,
The way
you see;
Just don’t
dare,
Embarrass
me.
A few
weeks ago 10,000 marchers flooded the streets of Kiev to protest the
government of President Viktor Yushchenko. I know. I read it in “The New
York Times.”
That same
week 10,000 marchers also flooded the streets of lower Manhattan to
protest the war policies of President Barack Obama. I know. I was there.
But you’d never know from “The New York Times.” They didn’t cover it.
Neither, for that matter, did anyone else. Grassroots dissatisfaction
with war, greed, and thievery in America has long since ceased being
newsworthy in the corporate press.
Conversely, the corporate-sponsored “teabag” protests, hyped by Fox
News, received plenty of coverage. Those events griped about “spending”
on the poor and taxes on the rich. Just the sort of issue to draw
struggling Americans out of their homes and onto the battlements. “Save
the Wealthy!”
This sort
of fake grassroots movement is known in the trade as “Astroturf.” It’s a
popular technique with corporations who hire crowd consultants to bring
out marching mercenaries to look like spontaneous demonstrators.
Cooperating media give the event plenty of advance publicity and send
out reporters and cameramen to show their corporate brethren (and maybe
their own advertisers) that they’re with the program.
Meanwhile
real public sentiment on critical issues is largely ignored. Even when
hundreds of thousands of marchers turned out against the Iraq war in
years past, it was downplayed. Which is one main reason only 10,000 turn
out now. The media helped make sure that those early outpourings didn’t
do any good. Everybody makes money in a war, even the press, so why rock
the boat?
And when
was the last time you saw a poll of American sentiment about our foreign
adventures? There were plenty of them back in the early days of war when
the public supported it. Then the tide turned. We’re sour on war now, so
no more polls. In fact, the University of Connecticut polling service,
formerly one of the national leaders, recently retrenched its operation.
No news is good news if you’re an arms maker, mercenary provider, oil
company, military service, or contractor of any sort. Who wants to brood
about the fact that the majority of folks back home don’t want your dumb
war?
Our
intrepid reporters likewise ignore sentiments in occupied lands. Heroic
pollsters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have contrived to sample
public opinion in those unhappy places as to whether they want U.S. and
allied forces to continue to “protect” them. In each case the answer has
been “no,” but the U.S. media has not found that data worthy of
attention. Neither, as you might guess, has the Washington war machine.
In
addition to those Ukrainian marchers, thousands of French recently came
out to protest a big NATO conference in Strasbourg. The press was all
over that one too. Our old friends the “black-clad anarchists” were
there, as were police storm troopers. Luckily, we learned a lot about
NATO as kind of a sidelight to the overhyped violence.
But at the
Republican National Convention last summer, our own police storm
troopers were out as well. They infiltrated protester ranks, tried
unsuccessfully to provoke violence, stole and destroyed movement
computers, took leaders into preventive custody, herded marchers into
remote cages…all the usual stuff. The difference? Hardly a word in the
media outside St. Paul.
So, when
we read about the shortcomings of the press in troubled lands, and how
it kowtows to the government or the rich, believe it. Just don’t assume
that it’s all that different here.
--
Columnist
William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor
of Norwalk, Connecticut. A photo of Bill Collins is available
CLICK HERE
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