This is an article I wrote for the Rocky Mountain Bullhorn about the protests in NYC in 2004:
NEW YORK CITY—The crowd of several thousand that marched down Sixth Avenue past the CBS Building on 52nd Street and the Time Life/CNN Plaza on 50th before stopping in front of the Fox News Building on 48th was loud but
orderly. Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and Code Pink had organized this “March on the Media” on the evening of September 1 in New York City as a counterpoint to the slickly presented Republican National Convention.
Chants of “Shut the Fox up!” and “Whose media? Our media!” arose from the
multitude as they voiced their loudest disapproval for Bill O’Reilly and his cohorts in Rupert Murdoch’s Fox media empire. Standing in the middle of this crowd, I couldn’t help but be struck, though, by the quixotic quality
of the demonstration.
Perhaps the reason it seemed so was the fact that the throng of protestors,
video camera-lances in hand, was so completely dwarfed beside the modern megaliths of the corporate media giants. The only thing these skyscrapers seemed to be missing was the creaking arms of a turning windmill.
This juxtaposition perfectly illustrated the challenges that protesters
and their allies in the alternative media face, especially in our post-
9/11 world of heightened security concerns. Police presence in the city
was extreme, which some viewed as an attempt to limit free speech by
Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg and his allies in the Bush administration.
But the complete lack of mainstream media coverage of the event may
have been even more effective than police barricades in limiting the impact of
their message, demonstrators were quick to point out. They claimed that as a
result of this collusion between government and corporateowned media, a biased view of world events is being force-fed to the American people.
The protestors, though, suggested that their type of grassroots organizing could change the media, but would require new and innovative techniques to succeed. Ultimately, they claimed, which side prevails will depend on the resources and determination each brings to the battle.
Scores of police, some already fully garbed in riot gear, including Plexiglas-visored helmets and wooden truncheons, surrounded the demonstrators. Metal barricades squeezed the protestors into a shoulder-to-shoulder
camaraderie, and police supervisors studiously scanned the crowd with handheld video cameras. Behind them, Secret Service agents with prominent earpieces unsmilingly watched for troublemakers.
Because a permit had been obtained, the protestors were not restricted to a twoby-two marching formation. Rather, half the sidewalk and one lane of the street had been cordoned off for their use. Another lane on the other side of the street had been roped off as well, but not for the protestors. Occasionally, black SUVs with darkly tinted windows would speed by, escorted by police cars and motorcycles, blaring sirens and flashing an array of blue and red lights.
The government functionaries inside gave no indication of awareness of the protestors, though many on the street carried signs and some even wore bright or theatrical costumes.
Mark England explained why he had decided to demonstrate with his daughter, Mariva.
“I think [the mainstream media] is owned by too few people, and too few points of view are represented. So if the guy who owns Fox, if he has captured the audience of three quarters of the world’s population, then that’s a bad deal. He’s pushing one agenda. He doesn’t speak to what I believe at all.”
Behind him, another police-escorted motorcade screamed down the canyon of Sixth Avenue.
Also using these “Republican lanes” was an unending flow of chartered buses, as they transported delegates from posh, midtown hotels. Just a couple blocks away, outside the Sheraton, dozens of cops lined the steps down to the sidewalk, providing a secure door-to-door channel for delegates, many of whom wore distinctly uncomfortable expressions.
Just outside this area, SWAT team members in black combat helmets and thick flak jackets, carrying M-16s with scopes atop, provided a further layer of security. Nearly every delegate had clad him- or herself in a flag of one sort or another—lapel pins, neckties or stars-and-stripes scarves jauntily flung around necks. Once on board each chartered coach, an armed and uniformed police officer occupied the first seat of the first row, and the Republican delegates would be whisked securely away.
At the other end of this route, Madison Square Garden had been transformed into a fortress, and was alternately surrounded by phalanxes of media trucks with satellite dishes and even more cops, concrete barriers and new, metal barricades that rose up to form a ramp-in-reverse, apparently beefy enough to sheer off the undercarriage of even a speeding dumptruck.
The organizers at FAIR had managed to get a permit for a small sound system. In contrast to the bright media lights that surrounded the multimillion-dollar stage inside the convention center, Robert Greenwald, the director and producer of Outfoxed, a documentary exposé about the Fox News Channel, climbed up on a small stepladder. He was greeted by loud cheering from the crowd, who held signs aloft that variously read, “Six Corporate Giants Control Your Media” and “Corporate Media: Unfair and Unbalanced.”
Greenwald soon hit his stride.
“If we continue, through the hard work that you’re doing, we will create the kind of media we want. I’ve worked in the film industry and television for many years. And one thing I can tell you, the sponsors behind these shows are not known for risk taking, they’re not known for their courage. And it’s extraordinary, really extraordinary what a letter or a phone call can do. The right has done it for years. Eric Alterman calls it working the refs. We’ve been late coming to the table, but we’re getting there now.
“And I urge all of you, you’ve got to give us five minutes a day, an hour a week—whatever you have—whether it’s writing a letter, making a phone call, raising hell, getting involved with FCC issues, there’s something for everyone to do!”
The crowd applauded in approval.
The next speaker was Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR, who began by talking about the biased coverage his organization found at Fox News, before turning his guns on General Electric’s NBC.
“I was also the senior producer on the most watched show on MSNBC, which was Phil Donahue’s primetime show. We were given orders in the last months of that show that every time we booked a guest that was anti-war, we had to book two guests that were pro-war.”
Boos from the crowd.
“In one meeting, one producer said that she wanted to book Michael Moore, and she was told if you do that, you have to have three right-wingers for balance. I had considered proposing that they put NoamChomsky on the air.”
Loud applause from the crowd.
“I knew it would be rejected because our studio could not accommodate the 83 rightwingers we would need to be balanced!”
Laughter and cheering.
“Now, if you watched MSNBC after Donahue was fired, if you watched it in the run-up to the war and during the war, you know that no one waved the flag more than MSNBC, not even Fox. And if you’re so busy waving the flag, you don’t have any energy to do what journalists are supposed to do in a free society, which is ask tough questions of the powers-that-be before the bombs start dropping!”
How much of all this, though, would actually get through? How much of what was happening here behind the scenes, unscripted, could reasonably be expected to pass through the filter of the corporate media and into the homes of Mr. and Mrs. America?
The absence of mainstream media cameras provided the answer: Little, if any, in fact would. In addition, the massive police presence reinforced the protestors’ message that free speech was being squeezed into smaller and smaller zones.
Only time will tell whether these protestors’ fervent fight against the giants of corporate media succeed or their message be successfully ignored by the media and restricted by the government.
Until then, Cohen advised the gathered crowd to circumvent the mainstream media by heeding alt-news sources, such as “DemocracyNow!”, Commondreams.org and FAIR’s website.
“The good news is, we now know how to reach millions of people around the corporate media,” he said. “Join the movement that’s restructuring this media, and let’s bring about fundamental change in this country.”
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