For the half hour (at the least) that I was watching, the reporters failed to mention what the people were protesting. There was however, a lot of talk about how the state police were putting on their gas masks, as a sort of threat to protesters. Reporters repeated this very often, only dramatizing the situation. They seemed to want the audience to continue anticipating the use of tear gas, so they would keep watching-a strategy not unlike the kind drama screenwriters use.There was also plenty of reporting that put the police officers in a very positive light. I heard multiple times how the officers were "actually" handing out water bottles to the protesters because of the high temperatures. Because of the use of "actually" what I really heard was: "Despite the fact that the police officers appear to be stomping on the protesters' freedom of speech, they actually are encouraging it! Why else would they be giving them water?"
Not only were are the police made out to be the good guys in these reports, but they protesters are made to look foolish. This news clip is from a report of some of the protesters today, who were now front of Boeing Headquarters. The reporter says that the protesters were "singing songs" and that "silly string," "kazoos," and "glitter" "all over the place." These words portray the protesters as childish. I also think it is not a coincidence that phrases such as "all over the place" have become used to describe both the NATO and Occupy protesters, as they appear so often of the lips of new reporters.
Why isn't the media more objective when covering protest stories?
As we have talked about in class, everything is a construction. No matter whether a news outlet wants to be objective and unbiased, there will be bias. Now, in regards to the media and NATO, I don't think the media chose their angle by accident. It seems like a safe angle, a safe choice for media outlets to side with the City and the police.
ReplyDeleteSarah, Nice post. I agree: your passion/voice is much clearer in later posts. This is a strong post on an important topic. Not light summer reading, really, but some day you might check out Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. This post could be strengthened with analysis of words within the news reports, etc. Overall, though, good work! (Remember one comment does not mean one person read the post!)
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