Disappearing Antiwar Protests

[Guest guest]

Disappearing Antiwar Protests

Media shrug off mass movement against war

 

9/27/05

 

Hundreds of thousands of Americans around the country protested the Iraq War on

the weekend of September 24-25, with the largest demonstration bringing between

100,000 and 300,000 to Washington, D.C. on Saturday.

 

But if you relied on television for your news, you'd hardly know the protests

happened at all. According to the Nexis news database, the only mention on the

network newscasts that Saturday came on the NBC Nightly News, where the massive

march received all of 87 words. (ABC World News Tonight transcripts were not

available for September 24, possibly due to pre-emption by college football.)

 

Cable coverage wasn't much better. CNN, for example, made only passing

references to the weekend protests. CNN anchor Aaron Brown offered an

interesting explanation (9/24/05):

 

 

" There was a huge 100,000 people in Washington protesting the war in Iraq today,

and I sometimes today feel like I've heard from all 100,000 upset that they did

not get any coverage, and it's true they didn't get any coverage. Many of them

see conspiracy. I assure you there is none, but it's just the national story

today and the national conversation today is the hurricane that put millions and

millions of people at risk, and it's just kind of an accident of bad timing, and

I know that won't satisfy anyone but that's the truth of it. "

 

To hear Brown tell it, a 24-hour cable news channel is somehow unable to cover

more than one story at a time-- and the " national conversation " is something

that CNN just listens in on, rather than helping to determine through its

coverage choices.

 

The following day (9/25/05), the network's Sunday morning shows had an

opportunity to at least reflect on the significance of the anti-war movement.

With a panel consisting of three New York Times columnists, Tim Russert

mentioned the march briefly in one question to Maureen Dowd-- which ended up

being about how the antiwar movement might affect Hillary Rodham Clinton's

presidential chances.

 

On ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos observed, " We've seen polls

across the board suggesting that we're bogged down now in Iraq and now you have

this growing protest movement. Do you believe that we're reaching a tipping

point in public opinion? " That question was put to pro-war Republican Sen. John

McCain, who responded by inaccurately claiming: " Most polls I see, that most

Americans believe still that we have to stay the course.... I certainly

understand the dissatisfaction of the American people but I think most of them

still want to stay the course and we have to. "

 

A recent CBS/New York Times poll (9/9-13/05) found 52 percent support for

leaving Iraq " as soon as possible. " A similar Gallup poll (9/16-18) found that

33 percent of the public want some troops withdrawn, with another 30 percent

wanting all the troops withdrawn. Only 34 percent wanted to maintain or increase

troop levels--positions that could be described as wanting to " stay the course. "

Stephanopoulos, however, failed to challenge McCain's false claim.

 

(An L.A. Times recap of the protests--9/25/05-- included a misleading reference

to the Gallup poll, reporting that while the war is seen as a " mistake " by 59

percent of respondents, " There remains, however, widespread disagreement about

the best solution. The same poll showed that 30 percent of Americans favored a

total troop withdrawal, though 26 percent favored maintaining the current

level. " By leaving out the 33 percent of those polled who wanted to decrease

troop numbers, the paper gave a misleading impression of closely divided

opinion.)

 

On Fox News Sunday (9/25/05), panelist Juan Williams was rebuked by his

colleagues when he noted that public opinion had turned in favor of pulling out

of Iraq. Fellow Fox panelist and NPR reporter Mara Liasson responded, " Oh, I

don't think that's true, " a sentiment echoed by Fox panelist Brit Hume. When

Williams brought up the Saudi foreign minister's statement that foreign troops

were not helping to stabilize Iraq, panelist William Kristol retorted: " So now

the American left is with the House of Saud. " (That was, if anything, a more

complimentary take on the protesters than was found in Fox's news reporting,

when White House correspondent Jim Angle-- 9/26/05-- referred to them as

" disparate groups united by their hatred of President Bush, in particular, and

U.S. policies in general. " )

 

Another feature of the protest coverage was a tendency to treat a tiny group of

pro-war hecklers as somehow equivalent to the massive anti-war gathering. NBC's

Today show (9/25/05) had a report that gave a sentence to each: " Opponents and

supporters of the war marched in cities across the nation on Saturday. In the

nation's capital an estimated 100,000 war protestors marched near the White

House. A few hundreds supporters of the war lined the route in a

counterdemonstration. "

 

Reports on NBC Nightly News and CBS Sunday Morning were similarly " balanced, "

and a September 26 USA Today report gave nearly equal space to the

counter-demonstrators and their concerns, though the paper reported that their

pro-war rally attracted just 400 participants (that is, less than half of 1

percent of the number of antiwar marchers).

 

In a headline that summed up the absurdity of this type of coverage, the

Washington Post reported (9/25/05): " Smaller but Spirited Crowd Protests Antiwar

March; More Than 200 Say They Represent Majority. " Perhaps this " crowd " felt

that way because they've grown accustomed to a media system that so frequently

echoes their views, while keeping antiwar voices--representing the actual

majority opinion--off the radar.

 

 

War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.

[Guest guest]

Un-freaking-believable! The people are saying strongly that we don't wanna be there.fraggle <EBbrewpunx wrote:

Disappearing Antiwar ProtestsMedia shrug off mass movement against war9/27/05Jonnie

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