*Last night John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for President of the United States. While a momentous occasion, the mainstream media has missed the story completely. Demonstrations have been taking place all week in the Twin Cities that have led to hundreds if not close to one thousand or more arrests of protesters. While many protesters were instigators, most were not, simply using their First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech. This is something that I take great pride in and seeing fellow young people express their voice only to be shut down is despicable.
Even more disheartening is the total lack of mainstream media coverage this is receiving. If you scroll through the top stories on CNN.com, there is finally, now at the conclusion of the convention, a link letting you view a few videos of the protests that took place. Police arrested protesters, charged them with felony riot and have released most. While the severe charges will not stick, some face up to a year in jail for their actions. The media has remained silent.
Protests began as soon as the convention started on Monday, overshadowed by coverage of Hurricane Gustav and came to a head on Tuesday evening. There was a music festival called the Ripple Effect Music Festival, which had all the proper permits to hold this festival in St. Paul on Tuesday. The popular band Rage Against the Machine, well known for their political activism, was scheduled to play the event. Upon attempting to take the stage, police prevented the band (who just recently reunited) from even taking the stage. The band took to the streets. Grabbing a megaphone, singer Zach de la Rocha and guitarist Tom Morello addressed the crowd about protesting peacefully and proceeded to perform two songs sans instruments. After the band left, police promptly arrested nearly 200 more protesters.
Rage did get to play a show the following night, Wednesday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Upon concluding the show de la Rocha told fans to leave peacefully. Not all did. Police in riot gear were waiting and promptly arrested after fans took to the streets and began protesting what de la Rocha called the "fascist Republican agenda."
The protests for me became a bit more personal when a photographer from my former school, the University of Kentucky was arrested amidst the protesting this week. He was a photographer, press pass included. He was doing what any responsible journalist might do, cover the story. He was charged with felony riot.
The media continued their silence all week. Now agree or disagree with the protesters taking to the streets, this was a story. A major one at that. The journalists that did take to the streets were being intimidated, threatened, and yes, even arrested. This prevents Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Speech, and is downright un-American. Pro-war, anti-war, pro-Bush, anti-Bush, Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, young, old, it doesn't matter folks. These were people that couldn't express their right to free speech because a few decided to spoil it for the many and the cops went overboard. Round up those that are causing destruction to property, interrupting the protests, or threatening police. Next time, I shouldn't have to look very hard to see police blasting a woman in the face with pepper spray or dragging someone through the streets. We did this in 1968, let's never do it again and shame on the media for shoving to the back page.
Cops should be there to serve and protect. Arrest those that are causing a danger, but kids waving American flags calling for an end to the war giving you the peace sign? Why spray them? What did they do? Oh yeah, they decided to disagree with the establishment. They paid the price.
*The picture is of Kentucky Kernel photojounrnalist Ed Matthews. He was photographing the protests and was not taking part in them. He was doing the job of the people we study in this class, reporting the news. At least he was trying to, and trying to do it honestly.
4 comments:
Wow. And I thought the Olympics were bad. At least the repression shown by the Chinese government got into the mainstream. How can the media not be covering this? This is just as bad if not worse than what China did during the Olympics and their not even a democracy.
It is unfortunate what has gone on. For whatever reason the mass media left this story alone. Were they afraid of it looking like Chicago in '68? Both sides need to be covered equally. Cover the celebration that is the convention and what is occurring outside.
I'm not being biased either. If this had happened outside the DNC, I'd be saying the same thing.
Wow its amazing yet simultaneously scarily about the media's discretion abilities. I think that there are several reasons as to why the riots were not reported widely. Gustav received the most attention last week and whatever attention was left was relinquished to the GOP convention. Several times split screens were displayed between Gustav and the convention. If CNN was the only network that did report the riots its image of being a more liberal network may have been elevated because they were the only ones reporting it. In an attempt to be viewed as neutral CNN probably decided it would be best to not place the story as a headline. I would think that it would like to give the GOP as much attention as it did the DNC despite the circumstances. In a sense the media hurt itself in that the failure to report the infringement on which its foundation is laid upon is a failure to accept the responsibility to granted to it.
I think you should be happy the MSM didn't report this, because if they had, the violent protesters shown here
http://www.examiner.com/x-701-National-Defense-Examiner~y2008m9d7-AFLCIO-reps-coordinated-anarchists-for-RNC
would have been the real story. The fact of the matter is that protesting isn't as powerful as it was in the 60s and 70s. People frown upon it, because they know it is basically yelling worthless tripe and lame slogans. Many of those protesting are far left, marxists, or socialists in a country which is predominantly center-right.
You're right that some of the photographers outside have been treated unfairly, but it would fair to realize how hard it is to keep order at events such as these with violent and unruly protesters. No mayor or governor wants to be known as the person who couldn't keep the peace while the RNC is going on.
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