Having been part of the media which was able to go on the opposite side of the fence (as well as someone who spent most of their time outside the fence, because it was really boring inside the fence), I can honestly say that you didn't miss anything over there.

Sure, there were all sorts of politicos in there. There were lots of cops, of course. Heck, Monday night I was first in the media masses stuck against the wrong side of the fence (and trying to fight my way out to the side where everything was happening), and had to dodge Secret Service goons.

But outside of the media lounge (where the free food was), there was little worth reporting on that wasn't covered by the major corporate television stations. And if you had the audacity (like me) to be from a print media, you were just screwed - you weren't important enough to them.

So sure, I sat inside the fence. You might have seen me, in fact; I spent a couple hours on Tuesday night sitting on a concrete barrier, watching the Iraqi sanction protests. I got to listen to a reporter from KABC phone in her radio report; I got to write a couple of articles, and I got to take notes on the way the world worked.

Don't feel bad if you didn't go in there. Every time I walked into the complex, I felt like taking a nap. And once, I did. After all, I was print media - who wants to talk to a newspaper? It was all about CNN and NBC, MTV and FOX. There was more talk inside of the protests outside, and a bunch of nervous media types.

You know, although it didn't bother me too much (heck, half of the folks in the protest pit looked like my friends), the attitude and appearance of the protesters scared the bejeezus out of the vast majority of the media inside the Staples Center.

Are you really, truly wondering why nobody reported on your causes? If you are, listen up for a moment.

It's because the media was afraid of getting killed by people with bandannas pulled over their faces. People with large signs and big sticks. People who had no fear when cursing the cops, who literally asked to be arrested - and succeeded. Think about it for a moment.

Do you REALLY want to get your point across? Don't scare the media. Include them, invite them. Talk about everything you believe in (one issue at a time, though!), tell them your life story. Tell them of protests you've gone to and people you've met. The media loves stuff like that.

Teach the media. Explain the roots of the causes. Tell them who Mumia is - heck, until I went online, I had no clue because none of you protesters would bother telling me. All you would say is to free him, and that meant nothing to me.

Tell the media why you feel that Gore and Oxy are tied together with strings of cash. Hand out information with bibliographies or with some form of contact information. In fact, issue press releases which don't sound like a manifesto, and you'll probably get them published.

There's so many things that could have been done, should have been done, by you protesters. These are but a few things which pop into my head initially. Be coherent; pick your issues and plan your words. Create catchy phrases which truly keep your message in mind, rather than reusing the same "Whose streets? Our streets!" which means absolutely nothing to those who are reporting on the issues.

Don't slam me - I was a protester, too. I dropped the camera for a while during the police brutality protest and walked with friends, joining the people who were demanding that Leonard Peltier be freed from an undeserved prison sentence. (And if you want to know about Peltier, I'd be glad to tell you.)

But I'm media, through and through. It's my life, it's my love. And yes, I wrote about you protesters. Not that you helped me any - I had to go to D2KLA or other sites to find anything to help me with articles. And I wrote favorably about you (compared to the corporate media).

I'll shut up, and clamber down from my soapbox now. But please, consider this little thought that I will leave you with:

If you instantly assume that all are against you, shortly your wish will come true and they truly will be. Don't let that happen - the fight that you are fighting is too important to silence it by stupidity.

Thank you for the detailed and considerately written critique. I went to the URL you listed to find some of your reporting, but was unable to find anything with your byline. I read a "diary"-style piece that was far more balanced than most media coverage, though, and it looks like you were involved in putting that piece together.

I will address a few of the points in your post, and with every intention of not "slamming" you at all:

"SCARED":

Interesting to hear that you feel some of the media were "scared" of the protesters. Sounds like they didn't really get out there, or they would have met plenty of "non-scary" looking folks. I would say "thanks" to you for coming out, but do I need to? Isn't that just the job of a reporter? Shame on your colleagues.

BEING THERE:

As an IMC journalist, I don't write articles about anything I didn't see myself, don't understand, or didn't hear from an eye-witness. Eye-witness testimony is couched as such. If there were reporters at the convention writing about protesters without talking to them, and then saying "their message is unclear", then they need to review Journalism 101 in my opinion.

HANDOUTS:

On educating reporters about the causes: From what I saw, some reporters refused to accept handouts from protesters. Was this from an urge to remain separate from the groups they were covering?

BACKGROUND:

As for having to go to D2KLA for background info on the protests: What's wrong with that? Aren't journalists expected to research background into anything they are covering? And the D2KLA site was hardly a secret. How could any journalist planning to cover the convention have missed Mayor Riordan's famous "stay away" editorial in the LA Times (and reprinted elsewhere, even here in Minneapolis) that specifically named the site? His characterization of the site as advocating "violence" and being run by "International anarchists" would surely have piqued enough interest to visit it. (Upon visit any reporter than could not have missed the clearly worded pledge promising non-violence, no drug-use, etc.)

The D2KLA site featured each day's protest theme, and also spelled out the anti-corporate globalization umbrella under which all the different causes fell. Non-"manifesto" press releases were also easy to find there.

"WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!"

We're not going to give up that chant just because it doesn't mean anything to the media. Though we must address the media--and, apparently, chase them down, tie them up, and force them to listen to us--everything we do can't be done for them. Such chants as the popular one above function to rally the troops, get the feet moving, and the heart pounding. Inspiring ourselves in these large public moments is vital to keeping ourselves going during the small local efforts so many of us make. Back in my city of residence, these chants go through my head still, and help me to do the work that must be done here.

"Not that you helped any"

I spent an hour and a half with a Boston Phoenix reporter on Monday, showing him around the IMC and riding the train with him up to Pershing Square for a rally. I had been practicing "sound bites" in my head during the weeks coming up to the convention, and was pleased to be able to share them with him. Though I was not directly quoted, his article (http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/00/08/24/PROTESTS.html) reflects some of my sentiments. It's one of the better pieces of coverage about the protests I've read.

Though I didn't know it at the time, I was acting as his "media liason". The LA IMC had a set of about 10 official "Media Liasons" who were there to talk to the press, register them as guests so they could give them a tour, make sure they didn't film anything in the work area until an announcement had been made, etc. This is a great idea that would seem to address your concerns; if every organization at the protests had a media liason to educate journalists, then getting the information out would be easy and effective.

But maybe not. My experience with outside media at the IMC was that many of them were snotty and pushy. Many did not respect our process of registering as guests and waiting for a media liason. They just wanted to push into the work area with lights and cameras blazing. I had to physically prevent several from entering. (Which I did by stepping in front of them and not moving; at 6'2" I can do this.)

So, forgive us if we sometimes characterize the media as being "against" us, but generally they are certainly not _for_ us, and their assumptions are often those of the people who _are_ against us. Watched any FOX News lately? Is it even possible to get an informed message printed or broadcast through an outlet controlled by Murdoch? Why would corporate-controlled media want to give genuine coverage to anti-corporate messages? It is not in their best business interest to do so. "Hey hey CNN -- here's the facts (bulleted and footnoted) about how your business model is squashing democracy." Not many stories like that squeak through. If the editors of "60 Minutes" have to pull stories because their corporate funders force them to, how are individuals supposed to penetrate?

Still, other smaller media can still be reached. Back to the Boston Pheonix reporter with whom I spent an hour and a half. Though he put out an article that is better than most, he did not come off as an objective truth-seeker when I was talking to him, either. He clearly had his own bias, one that seemed the result of being steeped in the stereotypes that pervade the media at large. Informing someone with this mindset is a big hill to climb, though this guy was more open than most. I'm no shrinking violet when it comes to debate, and the star-power of journalists does not impress me, but it was still a difficult role to be a media liason.

The movement probably needs to train more folks in how to address these professionals, whether they are only self-styled as such or not. We must learn how to steer the conversation with people who are all about steering it themselves, and not going anywhere they hadn't thought of first. With our near-zero budgets and mountains of work, this will be a challenge. But apparently, if Lori is to believed, we need to teach ourselves how to spoon-feed the media, since too often they seem unwilling to find anything on their own, and will cry "unclear" unless the message is broken into footnoted bullet points and tattooed on their bodies where they can't ignore it. Even then, if the journalist is from big corporate media, there is probably no hope.

That is, we can try to do the media's work for them if they won't do it themselves, but we can't count on it working when the reporters are part of the corporate machine themselves.

I hope I didn't come off as attacking you, Lori -- I appreciate your comments, and hope that you post here again.

Lori, you have some valid points, thanks for sharing them! But I think you have failed to fully consider the reasons for the high level of mis-trust that protesters have for the mainstream media (and not only protesters, but the average American as well, conservatives and liberals alike...)


The police in the United States are using an unprecedented amount of repression on dissidents these days. Excessive bails, (which is specifically forbidden in the Bill of Rights), excessive violence, and infiltration of protest groups by plain clothes officers have become business as usual by police. The media SHOULD be interested in this not because they have been told to be by protesters but because it effects their job and daily life in America right now and will even more in the future. Remember, in Seattle and elsewhere, the police didn't care if a person was a protester, a journalist or even a passerby. All got equal treatment: gas and rubber bullets.


Why aren't more reporters angry and willing to report about the police's new tactics? It's supposedly a journalist's job to report acutately and fairly on important issues such as freedom of speech. They have not done so becuase they have been made part of the equation of power by the government. I'm not saying that there is a "conspiracy" as much as there is a tendency by mainstream reporters to allow themselves to be blinded by the "perks" of the business of corporate journalism: VIP treatment, snack tables, etc. This has led to an isolation from and a condescending attutide towards the people they are supposedly reporting to.


Protesters feel that the media is being "rewarded" when they tow the party line and that they have little inclination to portray them positively or even fairly. It's become pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that this is how the system works and that the media has been effectivly bribed into submission. This is why they mis-trust the media to the extent that they do. And now Lori, you're telling the protesters to "play the game" by coming up with easily digested sound bites and put on their Sunday best to impress the media enough so they can be pretty on camera?..to be good little protesters and get a pat on the head while nothing of any substantial value happens and the media with it's famously short attention span wanders elsewhere? In other words, to "play the game?"


Lori, people are getting sick and tired of playing the game, this is why they are in the streets. This is why the media is not trusted. Be aware that if a person protests the powers that be in this country they face jail, beatings, rubber bullets, and gas. This tends to make the protesters a bit, how shall we say, "distracted." Delivering the mainstream media a sound bite takes a back seat to keeping yourself and your colleagues safe from the wrath of the police. They also don't have the option of "going to the other side of the fence" when the violence starts. The very fact that there is a fence between the media and the reality of the streets should be a very big wake up call to you that there is something terribly wrong with this situation.


As for your comment,

"It's because the media was afraid of getting killed by people with bandannas pulled over their faces. People with large signs and big sticks. People who had no fear when cursing the cops, who literally asked to be arrested - and succeeded...."

People wear masks at protests these days in the United States because the police are photographing and taping the faces of protesters in a campaign to intimidate, harrass and in some cases, arrest them on trumped up charges. Some younger protesters wear masks because of the thrill of the "outlaw" image it projects, but most protesters wear them out of fear of the police. Above you stated that "half of the protesters look like my freinds." Underneath the masks, most of the protesters still look like your freinds. Don't be swayed by stereotyping! As far as I know, no reporter has been killed by any protester, but they have been shot with rubber bullets and gassed by the police. Ask your colleagues in Seattle. As the U.S. government gets more repressive towards dissent, journalists will have to ask themselves some hard questions about who they actually work for.


Thanks again for your comments. Contrary to some stereotypes, protesters love postitive reporting by the mainstream. Witness the startled and happy postings on this site when such an article occurs.

Lori,

I wasn’t in LA, and I’ll defer many statements to those well articulated comments above. But I witnessed the mainstream media’s behavior in Philly during some key early marches. Perhaps it’s an east/west coast dichotomy, or a difference of medium (video and camera crews tend to exercise more physical force in their ‘reporting’ than print journalists), but I found the media in Philly to be omnipresent, rude and disruptive while at the same time wholly ignorant of what was happening around them.

I’ll begin with the start of the Kennsington March - which was led off from city hall by a couple dozen children who were swarmed by an army of aggressive and obnoxious video crews and photographers. These children had the look of raw terror on their faces and the adult marchers had to push the media back to prevent the children from getting crushed. I was shooting video, but quickly joined the marchers in trying to push the media off the children, and after more than a few elbows were thrown my way.

After the march was finally underway (delayed by the initial media attack), the mainstream press spent their time at the front off the march, well ahead of the marchers walking with the police and other city officials. From what I saw throughout the march (nearly 5 hours), very few made any attempt to step back and interview any of the marchers (which numbered in the thousands). Only at key intersections, where there were large police presence, did the media even turn to face the demonstrators - presumably it hopes of capturing some kind of confrontation since they were carefully positioned themselves near the presumed safety of the police lines. The only media activity I saw in the mainstream media the rest of the march was when Newt Gingrich was spotted about to enter a White Castle. Camera crews literally broke out in a sprint toward him. Like a scared puppy he scampered the other way but was soon cornered and pinned against a fence. Overall, this was an exceptionally peaceful march, and as a result, the media seemed to exercise considerable disinterest in everyone involved in the whole affair.

The next day, a scheduled but rather spontaneous march occurred that resulted in the blockading of nearly 75 demonstrators by well over 400 police who weighed whether to arrest them or not (the buses has arrived). The media totally missed this one - and were no where to be found. Only after it was over, did the media crews appear, when the marchers were given permission to go to the DA’s office and file a complaint. A small group of young black bloc members sat in the street to discuss what they were going to do. As they actively engaged in an interesting discussion representative of the participatory consensus process that has defined this movement, they were set upon by camera crews who soon were four deep and pushing on the backs of the youth. One camera person even forced his way into the center of the circle, preventing the discussion from continuing. Comments from the media in the periphery ranged from: ‘would you guys hurry up, I’ve got a deadline’ to ‘so are your guys going to get arrested or what?’ I wish I could say some of the media present were actually interested in the consensus process unfolding in front of them - but to be honest, I don’t believe a single one of them bothered to listen to what the youth were saying.

Lori, I agree with you that we have to educate the media. We must be prepared with fact sheets and be prepared to tell compelling stories (in fact this was the case in Philly). But the media have to do their job too, they need to exercise a little more civility and sincerity in the way they do their ‘jobs’, and most of all, they need to learn to listen. From what I saw in Seattle, DC and Philly, this was the same old establishment media we’ve always known - they swoop in for the confrontational moments, grab the necessary images, then go off to put their own spin on the events, often without bothering to really listen or speak to the people involved. Obviously this isn’t the case for every journalist, but unfortunately it seems to be the status quo of the profession, enough so, that people who typically encounter the media have come to mistrust their intentions.

It’s not as you say that we ‘instantly assume that all are against you’, it’s just that so many in the media have repeatedly demonstrated such biases, despite a considerable amount of patience and effort on the part of many of the demonstrators to enlighten them. As for the media being afraid of the demonstrators, many reporters were equipped with gas masks by their news department, so it seems the culture of fear begins in the head office and is a little more than misdirected, after all, it is the police that are using chemical weapons and clubbing people, not the demonstrators (perhaps they don’t even watch their own video). Yet, the same reporters have no problem hanging out with the police command structure, perhaps too much, given the slant of many of their stories. John Hess once referred to this as lazy journalism, referring to reporters that just show up at the local precinct to get the day’s crime story.

If I have but ONE request to make of media men who say they want to know the truth (they can't handle the truth):

USE www.cryptome.org

This site will provide a flow of the kind of information you don't want to know about.

Thanks for your response, Jeremy - sorry it took me this long to get back to replying to it!

Before I respond, though, let me say that no "slams" were seen in what you said. Heck, you were gentle - I've been in a true flamewar before, and you were just debating.

The diary-style piece was mine, and there are others (which aren't currently up on the site). Also on the site is a short newsbyte about Lieberman, but not much else at this time. Unfortunately, most of the convention had little interest to the Native American public. This meant that the paper I write for was interested in it, but didn't print a lot of it. (There's more that will be up there, however... we're spreading out our coverage somewhat.)

On "scared..."

Don't thank me for going out there - it was fun, educating, and above and beyond all, better than sitting inside the Staples megacomplex. Besides, everything I could possibly need from the Staples Center was already printed up hours before it happened - we had copies of Gore's speech about two hours before he said it. It was rather pointless inside, really. Which makes me wonder, outside of the "fear factor," why so little of the media emerged from the media lounge and talked to people.

Personally, I felt that the few media folks (other than those from my publication) who visited the Shadow Convention or the protest areas were a bit on the annoying side. The L.A. Times reporter who was there during the "bomb threat" was really an obnoxious [insert expletive here]. And, from personal experience, I can say that the CNN cameramen know how to bodyslam people out of their way with that camera.

I guess it goes to show that those who did go out (from the corporate media, anyhow) were less than interested; those who didn't were fearful of what they might find.

On "being there..."

There are ways of writing a base article without having been there. It's standard in the Associated Press, for example. However, you don't get a good article that way - you only get a base article which has bare-bones facts.

To have a good article, you have to research, get quotes (if applicable, which it inevitably is), spend a large quantity of time writing and rewriting, and pray that your editor understands the theme of the article. However, in a situation such as the Dem2K convention, most journalists don't have this option - they have to slap it together at high speed for quick publication online and then clean it up for the print version. This means that much of the college learning flies out the window, and the hack journalist takes over.

I suppose there's good and bad things to this style of reporting, but if someone's familiar enough with the topic material, good articles do emerge from this process. Unfortunately, most of the time they don't.

On "handouts..."

I don't know that it was from an urge to stay separate. I do know, however, that it's darned hard to write or take photographs with your hands full of fliers.

I started taking notes on the back of some of the ones I'd received. I suppose that was as good a way as any to keep them all together.

I refused a few, also - but that was after I'd already gotten them. I figured it was best to leave some for other media personnel rather than have them all to myself.

On "background..."

There's certainly nothing wrong with visiting D2KLA, and I'd done it upwards of two weeks before the convention started. I checked it daily for new information. Not much new stuff came through there, to be quite honest - and there wasn't much to work with other than back-patting and hand-shaking in congratulatory bliss afterwards.

What little was available there was quite helpful during the convention, and they forwarded a lot of people over here to find out more from the independents who posted on here. This site was probably one of the most helpful (which would explain why I'm still around here).

As for Riordan's article, I was somewhat amused. It's typical Riordan crud, I hate to say; as I live in the LA area, I'm not surprised by anything that man emits through that ghastly hole he calls his mouth. In some ways, I almost hoped he would be right, except I didn't want to have to see the repercussions of that and didn't want anyone to get hurt by it.

On "Whose streets? Our streets!..."

Granted, it did get the people moving. It does have purpose, and I wasn't saying that it didn't encourage the protesters. But it didn't say anything about the issue of the day, other than that the protesters were taking over the street.

That's where I think some creative rhymester would do well to come up with chants appropriate to the protest at hand. I heard the same ones repeatedly throughout the week, and only rarely did I hear anything different.

And if those chants do inspire other people in the way that they inspired you, then use them as well. But make room for things that inspire the media's fragile minds as well as for things that encourage the protesters.

Incidentally, I can say that those chants haven't left my mind, either. Neither has the "Please, don't shoot! Please, don't shoot!" of the protesters during the Monday night police motion.

On "Not that you helped any..."

I admit to having been one of the curious media at the IMC area. However, I didn't try and push my way in - I asked where I could get access to the computers so that I didn't have to wait until I got home to hit the website. (I should've just hit the website at the media lounge down at the DNC - after all, they had DSL lines sitting there with nobody at them - but I didn't think of it while I was there.)

But I will say that the first time I went up there, I stood panting just outside the elevator, and then started to walk in the only available area I saw with people in it. I was stopped and asked what I needed, politely, and aimed in the right direction. It was rather nicely run, with polite people manning it. I never saw one of the "media liasons," as far as I know... but I did talk to a few of the independents who were standing around.

If large, corporate media are uninclined to report fairly on protesters, I suppose there is a dire need for smaller media to do it. (That's one of the reasons I did.) However, don't compare TV media at the convention to the print journalists (with the possible exceptions of the LA Times) - most print journalists were pretty left-out and were looking for something to write on. If approached the right way, they likely would've bent over backwards to write something fair on the issues of those protesting the DNC.

Why not do the media's work for them? After all, to all intents and purposes, you (and most other folks on here) are less than impressed with how they conducted their investigations and how they wrote their pieces. Do it for them, and you'll get your point across. (Heck, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em... right?)

One thing that surprises me immensely is how activists don't try to change things from the inside, and instead stand on the outside screaming "foul!". I'm not saying it's easy to do it from the inside - it takes time and a lot of patience. But with that patience, and a little perseverance, you could so easily work your way into those media outlets and force-feed stories through them.