Occupy...What??

A movement is growing across America, but you wouldn’t notice if you are following most mainstream news outlets. 

Occupy Wall Street, a New York City based movement begun by young people, students, and the unemployed, is now entering its third week.  No longer is the movement confined to Lower Manhattan.  Similar “Occupy” protests have spread across the nation to Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.  This movement is spreading like wildfire.

But where is the coverage?  The first time this movement received major coverage was after the arrest of over 700 “Occupy Wall Street” protesters last weekend in New York City.  Cable news networks who frequently struggle to find anything of importance to fill their programs barely discussed the protests and instead spent countless hours speculating whether or not Chris Christie would  jump into the presidential race, even though he had been giving unequivocal “no’s” for months. 

Now, after videos of the NYPD’s excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators have gone viral on YouTube, the media has finally begun to take notice.  Yet coverage remains inadequate.  Of the news outlets who have reported on the “Occupy” movement, the majority is sensationalized.  They constantly replay footage of policemen clubbing demonstrators with nightsticks and pepper-spraying young women.  While these examples of unprovoked, unwarranted police brutality are important and need to be reported, the media has really failed to address what has driven the protestors to the streets in the first place. The underpinnings of the movement, which to be fair are currently very undefined and fluid, have not been explored by the media.

The media has also been inherently unfair in its characterization of this movement.  News organizations are simply not treating Occupy Wall Street with the level of seriousness it deserves.  Many mainstream news networks are dismissing the protestors as unorganized youth with little direction and give them a minimal chance of having an actual impact. The media should not take these people for granted. Three years ago the Tea Party was a group of cranky old white people who dressed up like Ben Franklin every April 15.  Today the Tea Party is a political force to be reckoned with, with millions of supporters and dozens of members in Congress. 

The absolute worst coverage of the protests was done by Fox News Business.  Their “attempt” to uncover the demands and motives of the protestors was incredibly misleading.  They aired interviews between reporters and the dumbest demonstrators they could find to try and portray the entire movement as nothing more than a group of stoned, hippie kids.  The Fox News host and his guest, conservative commentator Ann Coulter, then ridiculed the protestors.  The host described them as “un-American” and claimed they “hated freedom” while Coulter compared their movement to the rise of the Nazi Party and the Communist Revolution. 

This is a particularly interesting position for Fox News to take, as it was the first to give major coverage to the Tea Party movement and constantly applaud the group’s efforts, calling them “patriotic.”  It’s pretty unreal, really, to see a major media outlet deriding a peaceful protest by American citizens.  Isn’t it the role of the news media to stand on the side of the people, checking the power of government and holding our political and economic leaders accountable?  Maybe Fox News should spend less time making value judgments about citizens’ patriotism and take a second to consider their own. 

(Photo courtesy of bluestarchronicles.com)