MRC.org – Media Research Center.
Extremists in Guy Fawkes masks, Code Pinkers and “professional anarchists,” have camped out in New York City to protest Wall Street, greed and the capitalist system. Through social media the first protest in New York’s financial district has sparked copycat protests in more than a hundred cities.
In a video posted on The Blaze, organizer Nelini Stamp made it clear that what she wants is “to change the capitalist system that we have today because it’s not working for any of us.” Moments later she said the conversation needed to begin about how “to reform and bring, you know, sort of revolutionary change to the States.” She also labeled the OWS events part of a “new age radical movement.”
Yet that is not the sense you’d get from reading stories about the protest in national newspapers or watching ABC, CBS and NBC. In those stories, you’ll barely hear the word “liberal” mentioned in connection with the protesters, much less the more appropriate “socialist” label. Out of 69 national news reports (newspaper and broadcast) about “Occupy Wall Street” or “wall street protests,” only eight stories have used described the protesters or protests with words indicative of the left-wing extremism represented. That’s only 12 percent of the time.
Protester complaints reported by The New York Times ranged from the absurd: “I want to get rid of the combustion engine,” (a man named John McKibben said,) to the genuinely sad: “[I am] extremely disappointed and angry that I have no future,” 22-year-old student Sid Gurung told the Times.
But the socialist cry for “a more equal economy” and government handouts that seem to be the overwhelming theme of the protests which have been livestreamed online from “Global Revolution.” Despite that, national newspapers and the three broadcast networks have ignored or downplayed the left-wing extremism of the protests by focusing instead on the camaraderie and “street-fair” like feeling of protests.
The Business & Media Institute analyzed coverage in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and on ABC, CBS and NBC and found that out of 44 newspaper stories about the protests only eight used any of the following words to describe the protests or protesters: liberal, left-wing, radical, extreme, communist, socialist, anarchist, revolutionary or progressive.
The 25 network broadcast reports on the protests didn’t use any of them, although one report did quote a protester who declared: “This is the beginning of the people’s revolution.” Two additional reports suggested that without a leader the “rage” of the protests might turn to “revolution.” Opinion pieces and stories that mentioned the protests, but were focused on other topics were not included in the analysis.
a12iggymom's Blog 