Post by Shadow on Sept 28, 2005 18:15:25 GMT -5
Intervention Magazine
Mainstream media shows ineptness and irrelevance at the antiwar demonstration in Washington.
By Stewart Nusbaumer
Washington, DC -- Of the hundred or more speakers at the antiwar protest in Washington -- no one in their right mind could listen to all of them -- I heard only one say that “the media is not doing its job.” That was Cindy Sheehan. The mother of a son killed in Iraq, who last month camped out in a ditch near President Bush’s Texas ranch and ignited antiwar sentiment throughout the country, said what nearly every one of the tens of thousands of protestors was thinking.
In the media “pen” next to the speakers’ platform, journalists mill around. Some interview celebrities -- right now, George Galloway the British firebrand and Jim Hightower the Texan populist are being interviewed. Other reporters listen to the speeches -- Leslie Cagen, national coordinator for United Peace and Justice is on the podium – mercifully, their speeches are kept short. Photographers snap away, while camera crews film. Occasionally a journalist leans over the fence and asks a regular demonstrator some questions, but not often. The real story is never the tens of thousands of antiwar demonstrators, most of the time the real story is the demonstration is not even covered.
“Who’s that?” a middle-aged blond journalist, in an impatient tone, asks me. Her attractive blue eyes are edgy and narrow. I could tell she expected me to give her a quick answer.
“That’s Ramsey Clark,” I say. Only a few feet away, half a dozen reporters are circling the frail elderly statesman of the political Left, microphones are shoved within inches of his face. I fear a over-caffeinated journalist might bash his teeth out.
Mainstream media shows ineptness and irrelevance at the antiwar demonstration in Washington.
By Stewart Nusbaumer
Washington, DC -- Of the hundred or more speakers at the antiwar protest in Washington -- no one in their right mind could listen to all of them -- I heard only one say that “the media is not doing its job.” That was Cindy Sheehan. The mother of a son killed in Iraq, who last month camped out in a ditch near President Bush’s Texas ranch and ignited antiwar sentiment throughout the country, said what nearly every one of the tens of thousands of protestors was thinking.
In the media “pen” next to the speakers’ platform, journalists mill around. Some interview celebrities -- right now, George Galloway the British firebrand and Jim Hightower the Texan populist are being interviewed. Other reporters listen to the speeches -- Leslie Cagen, national coordinator for United Peace and Justice is on the podium – mercifully, their speeches are kept short. Photographers snap away, while camera crews film. Occasionally a journalist leans over the fence and asks a regular demonstrator some questions, but not often. The real story is never the tens of thousands of antiwar demonstrators, most of the time the real story is the demonstration is not even covered.
“Who’s that?” a middle-aged blond journalist, in an impatient tone, asks me. Her attractive blue eyes are edgy and narrow. I could tell she expected me to give her a quick answer.
“That’s Ramsey Clark,” I say. Only a few feet away, half a dozen reporters are circling the frail elderly statesman of the political Left, microphones are shoved within inches of his face. I fear a over-caffeinated journalist might bash his teeth out.