I wasn't surprised to find no coverage in this morning's paper of our local "Occupy" solidarity march. We really weren't that many and there were plenty of other stories to cover--a blues festival, a dog parade, the usual shootings and stabbings and corrupt cops.
On an inside page, there was an image from one of the many rallies around the world. Guess what it was...
Yeah, I know. If it bleeds, it leads. Nothing sells papers like violence. Gotta grab them eyeballs. All that.
But why, oh why, must people play that game for the media? The movement which has grown out of a tiny occupation of a little public square in downtown New York has struck a nerve around the world, because nearly everyone in the world understands the problem: the game is rigged against them. With the exception of one shrew yelling, "Get a job!" everyone our little march passed yesterday had either neutral or positive reactions.
And yet the only coverage of this worldwide event I got to read in my local newspaper today was headed with the act of some assholes.
Oh, sure. Down around paragraph six, the writer conceded that "most" of the events were "largely" peaceful. By the middle of the story, there was even a brief discussion of protesters' "disparate, confused demands." But the real story, to the writers and editors, was a few assholes destroying property.
Go ahead and blame the press if you want. They're owned by the corps, they love sensationalism and snark. They're irrelevant dinos anyway.
But sensationalism, snark and misdirection, a careful not telling of the story, has always been the press' job, whether your rag is a product of a multinational "media empire" or a one-sheet cranked out by one crank with a mimeograph machine (sorry to show my age there). It's. Just. What. They. Do.
Which is why I'm always so dispirited when someone on the side I consider myself to occupy does something assholish, whether it's as heinous as torching a car or as silly as covering up with a bandana like some kid playing cowboy.
I've always had my own fantasy, perfect protest. It consists of thousands of people, well-dressed, sans bicycles and dogs, with grammatically-correct signs, marching down and blocking city streets in absolute silence. You think that wouldn't freak some people out, make 'em wonder what those people wanted?
Sorry to rant on like this about one aspect of one event in a worldwide movement, but when I put my shoe leather and poor, tired back on the street in protest, I want it to be against the assholes of the world, not in league with them.
Deepest thanks to the millions who marched peacefully and joyously yesterday. May your voices be heard.