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As police fired rubber bullets through tear gas in Quebec City, many reporters echoed the
claim that "free trade" promotes democracy. Meanwhile, protesters struggled to shed light on a
key fact: The proposed hemispheric trade pact would give large corporations even more
power to override laws that have been enacted -- democratically -- to protect the
environment, labor and human rights.
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In Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria's accusations of "intimidation and scare tactics" echoed those against demonstrations for civil rights, peace in Vietnam and environmental safeguards.
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Newsweek responded to the turmoil at the Summit of the Americas with a column by Fareed
Zakaria, a favorite policy analyst in elite circles. He declared that "the anti-globalization crowd
is antidemocratic ... trying to achieve, through intimidation and scare tactics, what it has not
been able to get through legislation." In recent decades, of course, the same was said about
cutting-edge demonstrations for such causes as civil rights, peace in Vietnam and environmental
safeguards.
Protests against the likes of the World Trade Organization, and now the Free Trade Area of
the Americas, have great impact because they resonate widely. Foes of global corporatization
are speaking and acting on behalf of huge grassroots constituencies.
The ABC television program "This Week" deigned to air a discussion with a real-live
progressive activist, Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. Journalist Cokie
Roberts voiced befuddlement: "It's gotten to the point where any time there are global
meetings, world leaders meeting, we have a sense that the protesters are going to be there, and
there's not much sense of exactly what you're protesting." The interview only lasted a couple of
minutes.
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Most news outlets showed little interest in the content
of alternative forums in Quebec City that drew
thousands of activists from all over the hemisphere.
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Most news outlets showed little interest in the content of alternative forums in Quebec City that
drew thousands of activists from all over the hemisphere. Likewise, a big march in the city, with
some estimates ranging above 60,000 participants, got underwhelming coverage. For that
matter, most reporters didn't seem very deeply interested in the several thousand people who
bravely engaged in militant, nonviolent direct action -- risking and sometimes sustaining injuries
from police assaults -- while confronting the official summit.
What did get plenty of media attention was noted at the outset of the April 24 lead editorial in
the Wall Street Journal, which yearned for "a world where TV cameras prefer trade
agreements to black-clad anarchists." Some of those few "black-clad anarchists" call
themselves the Black Bloc.
Routinely slipping by, with scant journalistic scrutiny, is what we could dub the "White Bloc" --
a nexus of immense media power serving corporate interests.
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The White Bloc is not monolithic. But on the issue of "free trade," it's difficult to find a major
U.S. publication that does not editorially support accords like NAFTA, WTO and the new
FTAA.
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The White Bloc is not monolithic. But on the issue of "free trade," it's difficult to find a major
U.S. publication that does not editorially support accords like NAFTA, WTO and the new
FTAA.
The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, at the right edge of the Bloc, is much honored by the
media establishment. Last year, Journal columnist Paul Gigot won a Pulitzer Prize for
commentary. This year, in mid-April, the same award went to another very conservative
columnist for the newspaper, Dorothy Rabinowitz. But it's the unheralded daily output of the
White Bloc that can be most breathtaking.
On the day Rabinowitz's prize was announced, for instance, the editorial page of the Wall
Street Journal featured a freelance article that began this way: "In the early 1990s, America's
major cities were on life-support, suffocating under socialistic policies that left them looking like
Soviet-bloc relics." (It was not a humor piece, by the way.) Farther down the page was a
column headlined "The Monarchy Is Worth Saving," written by the Journal's deputy editorial
features editor, who earnestly argued that British citizens need their monarchy "as a source of
authority."
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But the White Bloc has a liberal side, too. Several New York Times columnists take turns
condemning those who have the gall to stand in the way of corporate Progress.
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But the White Bloc has a liberal side, too. Several New York Times columnists take turns
condemning those who have the gall to stand in the way of corporate Progress.
Free-marketeers at the Times know how to pound away at the same line. While heads of state
prepared to leave the Quebec summit, Paul Krugman ended his column by writing that the
protesters "are doing their best to make the poor even poorer." Two days later, Thomas
Friedman concluded his column by explaining that "these 'protesters' should be called by their
real name: The Coalition to Keep Poor People Poor."
The White Bloc (which includes people of all colors if suitably conformist) has its own forms of
hip solidarity. On the "Hardball" national TV program, airing on both MSNBC and CNBC,
host Chris Matthews closed his April 18 interview with Friedman exactly this way:
Matthews: "You are the future, my man. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times."
Friedman: "Thanks, bro."
Matthews: "The smartest columnist in the world."
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Originally published at: http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/04/26/index.html
Original: MEDIA SCRUTINY OF THE WHITE BLOC |
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