Charles Pierce: "THE FACE OF DISGRACE" - on the media's history of ignoring mass protests

[kpete]

The Face Of Disgrace
By Charles P. Pierce 9/23/2014 AT 9:40 AM




On February 15, 2003, millions of people all over the world protested the looming invasion of Iraq by the United States.

The major media, deafening themselves with their own tub-thumping, ignored them, or minimized them.

So they weren't there. So it didn't happen. But the Iraq war did.



On September 22, 2014, hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets of New York to demand that the country do something -- anything -- to cope with the existential threat of global climate change.

The major media, with another kind of war over which to thump the tubs and deeply concerned about a presidential election two years away, ignored them.

So they weren't there. So it didn't happen. But climate change did, and does, and will continue to happen.

......................


MORE:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Journalism_And_The_Ongoing_Disgrace

[HomerRamone]

1. K & R nt

[Atman]

2. Disgusts me to no end.

I posted about this on my FB page. Almost no one knew what I was talking about. What protests? Same with the Iraq war...millions of people marching, yet not one minute of media coverage. We know who are bought and paid for.

[chervilant]

17. I remember remarking to my fellow activists,

"Look how they've positioned their cameras, aimed at the sparse edges of the crowd. I bet they'll talk about a few thousand protesters, and not the hundreds of thousands of us that are here."

Sure 'nuf. That's what happened.

[tblue37]

3. But 6 Koch-funded Teabaggers with signs will get full media coverage, which will

describe them as a "massive grassroots protest."

[tblue37]

4. Oh, also KnR. nt

[underpants]

5. I have to tell you I did not know about Feb 2003 until at least a year later

I must have missed the DU threads on it or something. It was a year (or maybe 2) later when I saw a post about it here. I was shocked, I shouldn't have been but I was. There was ZERO coverage of it in the US from what I could tell.

[OnlinePoker]

6. It was on CNN at the time.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/15/sprj.irq.protests.main/

[librechik]

8. yes, A brief mention at the top of the hour. For a few hours

NOTHING like the 24/7 flogging certain non factual no scandals get (Benghazi, Whitewater) And everyone just saluted and bent over to W, not loudly questioning and ranting day after day trying to make some molehill into a mountain of news.

I guess that is what we are missing. Not the polite little feature peaces about ha ha ha, look what the kids are doing this sunny Sunday!

[Hissyspit]

13. That's where I saw it. Headline news.

[daleanime]

11. The only coverage I ever saw was here....

and I didn't get here till about 2005.

[Hissyspit]

15. It was the largest single anti-war protest in history.

Seems kind of important, right?

[underpants]

21. Yeah

Kinda

our media sucks

[librechik]

7. media learned from the Viet Nam war that citizens can spoil their money-making sprees

if they are shown what war really is, and if their own children are conscripted into it.

Now, no conscription, and no war pictures. They have learned, and the Media Six are also the weapons makers.

This can go on forever, just as Eisenhower feared.

[mountain grammy]

9. That is a very good observation..

Somehow, some way, about 30+ years ago, American media checked out of the "news" business.

[daleanime]

10. In my own unofficial poll Monday I asked.....

10 people what they thought of sundays protest......


No one knew what I was talking about.

[Le Taz Hot]

12. When I remember that it was the Washington Post

that broke the Watergate story and compare it to what we have now, I weep for the loss of our Fourth Estate -- historically, it's been one of the primary elements of change.

Protestors get zero publicity but they fall all over themselves if two or more teaklanners gather together and give them 24/7 coverage. That's not an accident -- that's corporate takeover of the media.

[Fred Sanders]

14. The major media are corporate owned, what did you expect than worship of their masters and

deflection for any protest on their control?

Clearly the major media are part of the problem and want no part of any solution.

[RufusTFirefly]

16. Good article, but Charlie got the date wrong

There were quite a few people out on the streets on Sept. 22 for "Flood Wall Street," but the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets of New York were there on Sept. 21, not Sept. 22, for the People's Climate March.

I was in downtown San Francisco on Feb. 15, 2003, and was blown away by the size and ebullience of the crowd. But I had no real illusions about how the corporate media would treat it.

[90-percent]

18. My understanding of the war protests prior to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq

Is that the largest number of anti-war protestors IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY all took place all over the world prior to the invasion.''

And this factoid has disappeared into the black hole of not-approved-by-corporations history.

I went to one myself in DC Jan 2013, the first of my life, and i got a f**king DRAFT CARD back in 1972!

Inneffective, but I'd do it again. And it looks like we have to increase turnout to a magnitude that our corporate MSM can simply no longer ignore it!


-90% Jimmy

[TRoN33]

19. The protest of dozen teabaggers are bigger news than 400,000 protesters...

Yet teabaggers always complained about MSM not giving them coverage.......


This is one of long list of irony of tea party!!!

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

20. I hate to say this but

The American people are very ignorant about most things that don't involve sports, entertainment and shopping.

[RufusTFirefly]

22. That may be true, but the media play a key role in creating non-events and destroying real ones

Everyone knew about the "Dean scream," for example. Despite the fact that it was one of the most notorious non-events of the last 20 years, that didn't stop the MSM from flogging it relentlessly. According to Wikipedia, "The scream scene was shown an estimated 633 times by cable and broadcast news networks in just four days following the incident, a number that does not include talk shows and local news broadcasts."

633 times in four days.

Take a moment to think about that.

And now for the followup sentence:

"However, those who were in the actual audience that day insist that they were not aware of the infamous "scream" until they returned to their hotel rooms and saw it on TV."

Until they saw it on TV.

What's that old slogan for the Yellow Pages?

"If it's not in here, it probably doesn't exist."

That's how the MSM works. If they don't promote it, it didn't happen. If they only promote it once or twice, it's probably not important. But if they want to manufacture an event out of whole cloth, they just turn on their cameras, do some creative editing, and broadcast the footage over and over and over again.

[adirondacker]

23. That was pretty much when I ditched mainstream news completely.

Saves me from grinding my teeth a lot.

[RufusTFirefly]

25. Believe it or not, Desert Storm was the last straw for me

The warmongering, cheerleading, and utter distortion of information was just too much. I found our willingness to be lulled into complacency by propaganda truly chilling.

These days, I don't even own a TV -- although I do own a monitor (for watching movies)

Unplugging has for the most part been very liberating. If something truly important happens, I hear about it on Pacifica -- or on DU.

I sometimes miss the Oscars, the Stanley Cup Finals, and the World Series, but otherwise I have no regrets.

[adirondacker]

26. Heh!

Yea, that should have taught me as well. I had a high school friend that served as a marine report back from the lines. He's got PTSD from what amounted to a slaughter in the field (grizzly and gruesome).

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

24. if we do get their attention

it will probably be negative.

[lolly]

27. The game has changed; any new strategies?

They say generals are always fighting the last war.

Perhaps protesters are fighting using last generation's tactics. We grew up watching images of the March on Washington and I Have a Dream, and instinctively felt that these types of events inevitably led to mass coverage of the event and to change.

It just flat doesn't work that way any more. The media doesn't cover it, as they did in 63.

We can complain about it here, but that doesn't change it.

So, it looks like a new strategy is called for. The 63 march wasn't spontaneous. It was the result of intense planning and strategy, and awareness of the state of the media at the time.

So, given what we know, can we come up with some new strategies? How can we use social media? The legal system?

I don't have the answers. It just really, really seems like last generation's strategies are no longer operable.

[notundecided]

28. Tea Party March

Announce a tea party march down Broadway. The media will show up.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

33. Actually that's a great idea

and then have a anti war rally thats' organized in secret.

[Android3.14]

37. ^^What Lolly said^^

We also need to find other ways to evaluate the impact of events. As we all know, the major networks simply ain't the biggest source of news.

Here is one suggestion - At each event create a "Cats and Dogs Protest XXXX" video, showing animals and signs doing stuff at the protest.

[allan01]

29. makes me ill too

was discussed on the slushrush show today and he screamed and railed saying that nothing can be done .meh. clean out your earwax sir.

[Uncle Joe]

30. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[blkmusclmachine]

31. No surprises here. The media was co-opted some time ago.

[indepat]

32. TPTB will not allow the right-wing mantra/agenda to be publicly exposed/repudiated/torn asunder

[Rex]

34. Corporatism.

The last cycle of a declining democracy.

[Cha]

35. This is exactly what I've been talking about since the Protestors were out

in force for Climate Change on Sunday and since Feb 15, 2003 in NYC.. I was there. I know how many there were and how the US corpmediawhore$$$$ under reported it.

thanks kpete

[Enthusiast]

36. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Thank you, kpete.

[DallasNE]

38. Today's Media Are Corporate Whores

The only represent the ownership class and are closed just as other corporations are closed institutions. A free press as envisioned by our Founding Fathers no longer exists. It has been monetized.

[spanone]

39. rmedia doesn't wish to upset those that fund them

for profit media has no obligation to speak the truth and doesn't