[smygo] The "Liberal" Media Shibboleth Redux
 
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 01:09:29 -0500 (CDT)


News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
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In an otherwise generally good article on the alleged liberal bias of 
the mass media at:

http://tinyurl.com/ywbh6n

one finds these comments:

Note over the next months how those "liberal" journalists refer to 
people who intend to, and will, protest during the Republican National 
Convention in St. Paul.

I'll start you off with two examples from the past week.

A story by two Star Tribune staff writers began this way:

"Anarchists and antiwar organizations preparing for the Republican 
National Convention are planning dozens of traffic blockades, are 
targeting perceived vulnerable spots in the Twin Cities metro area and 
are readying to spring from Internet promises to real-world action."

Anarchists? If there are more than two dozen actual anarchists in the 
entire country, I'll eat raw toad.

There are some troublesome punks, looking for excitement, who call 
themselves anarchists, undoubtedly, but they probably couldn't even 
define the word. And in going "Boo!" about their supposed plans, the 
Strib writers deeply color the public's perception of all protests and 
demonstrators even though they undoubtedly know that 98 percent of those 
who show up to protest the Bush/Cheney actions against this country will 
be peaceful, average Americans.

And a St. Paul Pioneer Press story on the probability of convention 
protests said in the third paragraph that the anti-war coalition 
planning at least some of those protests is made up of 1,400 
organizations "-- from activists to communists to pacifists."

Activists, of course. Communists? Not one in 10,000 likely protesters, 
but it sure will widen the eyes of readers. Pacifists? Some undoubtedly, 
but, again, a small percentage of those likely to demonstrate against 
Bush/Cheney in St. Paul. The focus is on a tiny minority; one would 
think Karl Rove sent in the notes for the stories.

*****

Now, the writer has a point about the media misrepresenting protestors 
as a whole by focusing on oddballs, but he just as clearly goes the 
other way in denying the numbers of such individuals -- anarchists, 
communists, etc. The guy should eat a raw toad.

-- 
Dan Clore

My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro
Lord Werdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
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Don't forget to question me."
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