Connie Hammond, a principal organizer for the Columbus march against
war in Iraq last Saturday, estimated that 800 people attended the rally.
Perhaps like me, you watched the evening TV news to see what kind of
coverage
the protest got. It was dismal. Channels 4, 6 and 10 ran five to ten
minutes of stories about snow, followed by about two minutes on the
international protests. The local march got about 10 seconds max. Aside
from
the brevity of the coverage, the message of the protesters was trivialized
by focussing on arrests at demos. Perhaps it was just me, but the anchors
seemed to editorialize on "what the protesters believe" in such a way as
to
indicate that the viewer was expected to believe otherwise.
The Dispatch was not much better. Okay, so the Sunday edition had a front
page
piece "Millions make Case for Peace", which included a whole column-inch
telling
us where the three central Ohio demos were, but they also ran two pieces
to incite war: one on the Iraqi war plan, and one on US proposals to
"prove"
Iraq is in violation of UNSCR 1441.
I note that, in general, attendance at US rallies was far lower than those
in European cities of comparable size. For example, Glasgow is slightly
smaller than Columbus and got a turnout of about 90,000. The reasons
for these differences are undoubtedly complex, but I think the media
has something to do with it. In fact, this view was partially articulated
by
Paul Krugman [1] in today's NY Times op-ed columns.
The popular media are failing to frame the issues well enough to allow
expressions of dissent to appear anything but unpatriotic in the minds of
the American public. And the situation is particularly acute in Columbus.
Personally I am disgusted with Columbus' popular media. I wonder why
local
reporters are not thoroughly embarrassed at the state of their profession.
My question: What ever happened to journalistic integrity?
Protest does work. Look at the European Union statement [2] yesterday.
"We
want to achieve [Iraqi disarmament] peacefully. It is clear that this is
what
the people of Europe want."
So I'd like to invite you to send an email to Chuck Nelson, president of
the
Central Ohio chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists,
explaining
how you feel about Central Ohio journalists being delinquent in their
responsibilities to the public, and asking him to help improve the
situation.
Here are his contact details.
Central Ohio Pro Chapter
President: Chuck Nelson
Business copy editor
The Columbus Dispatch
34 S. Third St.
Columbus, OH 43215
Phone: 614-461-8513
Fax: 614-461-5107
E-Mail:
cnelson@dispatch.com
www.centralohiospj.org
This is an open invitation. Feel free to circulate it.
Finally, on a lighter note, see
www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0208-06.htm
to find out what else 800 people can do to publicise the cause. (PARENTAL
ADVISORY: contains nudity.)
References
[1]
www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/opinion/18KRUG.html
[2]
www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/international/europe/18ETEX.html