\r\n\r\n\r\nPolice Violence in Genoa-- Par for the Course?<\/b>
\r\nMedia complacency helps normalize assaults on demonstrators<\/b>\r\n By Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting<\/i><\/b>\r\n<\/p><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n| <\/td>\r\n | \r\n\r\nU.S. media ran sensationalistic reports on the events in Genoa, \r\nbut showed little curiosity over about basic questions such as \r\nwhy Italian forces were armed with live ammunition, largely ignored\r\nthe violent police raid on peaceful organizers and independent journalists,\r\nand paid scant attention to the issues that brought out so many protesters\r\nin the first place.\r\n<\/b>\r\n\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/table>\r\n\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/table>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n<\/table>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n
\r\n\r\nU.S. media ran\r\nsensationalistic reports, but \r\nshowed little curiosity over about basic\r\nquestions such as why Italian forces were\r\narmed with live ammunition.<\/b>\r\n\r\nThis trend was particularly noticeable on the three major television\r\nnetworks' nightly newscasts\r\n\r\n <\/p> <\/p>
\r\n \r\n <\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n <\/table>\r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n | \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe tens of thousands of people who gathered last weekend to protest the G8\r\nsummit in Genoa were greeted by a \"ring of steel\" manned by police, military\r\nand paramilitary forces; one protester, Carlo Giuliani, was shot in the\r\nhead, run over and killed by police. U.S. media ran sensationalistic reports\r\non the drama \"in the streets of this gritty port city\" (ABC World News\r\nTonight, 7\/20\/01), but by and large showed little curiosity over about basic\r\nquestions such as why Italian forces were armed with live ammunition.\r\n\r\n<\/b> This trend was particularly noticeable on the three major television\r\nnetworks' nightly newscasts, which all managed to focus on the violence\r\nwithout seriously investigating its causes; when questions of tactics arose,\r\nit was usually in the context of whether protesters were too violent, not\r\npolice. In addition, only superficial attention was paid to the substantive\r\npolicy issues behind the summit and the demonstrations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n \"Genoa is ready for war,\" reported NBC Nightly News' Jim Maceda in the\r\nrun-up to the protests (7\/19\/01). \"Today over 20,000 Italian police on high\r\nalert, the port's shipping lanes closed, surface-to-air missiles deployed at\r\nthe airport. The site of tomorrow's economic summit now a two-square-mile\r\nred no-go zone, shops closed, every resident's ID checked.\" Why such heavy\r\nmilitarization? Maceda gave the clear impression that Genoa's intense\r\nsecurity measures were a necessary response to dangerous radicals.\r\n\"Organized, sophisticated, tens of thousands strong. Their mission: to do\r\nbattle with the world economic powers.... With this chaos of\r\nenvironmentalists, young communists and extreme anarchists, officials here\r\nexpect this volatile mix could lead to perhaps deadly violence.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n <\/p><\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n | \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n
\r\n\r\nNBC sidestepped questions of police misconduct in Giuliani's \r\ndeath by focusing on Giuliani's links to the Black Bloc, whose members \r\nNBC tarred as \"apolitical, often drugged, itching for a fight.\"\r\n\r\n <\/b><\/p>
\r\n \r\n <\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n <\/table>\r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n | \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAs in fact it did, though it was neither a wild-eyed tree-hugger nor a\r\ncommunist youth who pulled the trigger. All three networks reported\r\nGiuliani's killing, but none raised questions about the use of live\r\nammunition for crowd control. NBC Nightly News (7\/21\/01), while careful to\r\nemphasize that \"the large majority\" of activists in Genoa were \"all\r\nnon-violent,\" sidestepped questions of police misconduct in Giuliani's \r\ndeath by focusing on Giuliani's links to the Black Bloc, whose members \r\nNBC tarred as \"apolitical, often drugged, itching for a fight.\"\r\n\r\n<\/b> The NBC report made clear that many police actions had been \"extremely\r\nviolent,\" but also stated that Italian police were \"learning\" and had become \r\n\"more careful\" to target only \"black-clad extremists\" by helicopter, \"then\r\ncutting them off before beating them.\" The report provided no further\r\nanalysis of this practice, leaving viewers to wonder if police beatings\r\nwere perhaps the right way to deal with \"extremists.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n ABC World News Tonight (7\/21\/01) also made an effort to explain that most\r\nprotester violence was initiated by \"small bands,\" and that \"the vast\r\nmajority of protesters... came here to make argument, not trouble.\" But\r\nlike the other two networks, ABC failed to seriously address the question of\r\npolice brutality.<\/p>\r\n\r\n CBS Evening News was perhaps the most careless with generalizations about\r\n\"violent protests\": \"Violent demonstrators laid waste to the city's center\"\r\nin a \"frenzy of destruction,\" reported CBS's John Roberts (7\/21\/01); the\r\nday before (7\/20\/01), Roberts told viewers that \"violent protests transformed\r\nparts of this tranquil Mediterranean port city into a war zone today\" in an\r\nepisode of \"civil unrest and trouble-making.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n <\/p><\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n | \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n
\r\n\r\nThe July 22 police raid on the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum and the \r\nIndependent Media Center (IMC) received largely indifferent coverage.<\/b> \r\n\r\nABC World News Tonight did not report the raid at all. CBS Evening News\r\n(7\/22\/01) mentioned it in passing\r\n\r\n <\/p> <\/p>
\r\n \r\n <\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n <\/table>\r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n | \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe July 22 police raid on the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum-- the\r\numbrella group coordinating the protests-- and the neighboring Independent\r\nMedia Center (IMC) received largely indifferent coverage. Reports indicate\r\nthat some 200 police officers descended on the Forum, brutally beating the\r\nactivists sleeping there in an attack that injured 61 people, with more than\r\na dozen of the 93 people arrested carried out of the building on stretchers,\r\nsome unconscious (London Guardian, 7\/24\/01).\r\n\r\n<\/b> During the attack, journalists at the IMC were detained and searched (and\r\ntherefore unable to document the beatings occurring next door); several\r\nreported that police trashed the IMC offices and confiscated files. A source\r\nat the Italian Interior Ministry told the London Guardian (7\/24\/01) that\r\n\"the raid had turned into a revenge attack by police venting their\r\nfrustration\"; there have been calls in the Italian parliament for a\r\ncommission of inquiry into the policing, and for the resignation of the\r\ninterior minister.<\/p>\r\n\r\n ABC World News Tonight did not report the raid at all. CBS Evening News\r\n(7\/22\/01) mentioned it in passing, with John Roberts noting almost\r\napprovingly that \"the tactics were heavy-handed, but the streets were quiet\r\ntoday.\" Commendably, NBC Nightly News (7\/22\/01) devoted more significant\r\nattention to the attack, with Jim Maceda reporting that 66 activists had\r\nbeen \"beaten mercilessly,\" and noting that while police claimed the\r\ncrackdown had been on \"violent extremists,\" protest leaders countered that\r\nall the victims had been non-violent and \"the latest victims of police\r\nbrutality.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n <\/p><\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n | \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n
\r\n\r\nAnd what about the issues that brought so many protesters into the streets?\r\n\r\n <\/b><\/p>
\r\n \r\n <\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n <\/table>\r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n | \r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd what about the issues that brought so many protesters into the streets?\r\nCBS Evening News (7\/21\/01) lamented that \"rock-tossing, firebomb-throwing\r\nanarchism\" was all many people would remember about Genoa, but seemed\r\nutterly unconscious that news coverage might have had anything to do with\r\nthis problem. The report segued into uninformative soundbites about debt\r\nrelief from Bono and Bob Geldof, which prompted reporter Bill Plante to\r\nopine: \"Sometimes it takes a rock star to keep your issue from being drowned\r\nout by violence. Other non-violent groups find themselves ignored.\" CBS, of\r\ncourse, was one of the media outlets doing the ignoring.\r\n\r\n <\/b> \r\n\r\n \r\n <\/p><\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n | \r\n \r\n
\r\n \r\n\r\nACTION:\r\n<\/b>\r\nPlease contact the networks' nightly news shows and urge them to conduct\r\nserious investigations into the growing trend of police violence at\r\nanti-globalization protests. You might also urge them not to wait for\r\nmassive civil unrest to report on globalization issues.\r\n<\/p> \r\nCONTACT:\r\n<\/p> \r\nNBC Nightly News\r\n
Phone: 212-664-4971 or 202-885-4259\r\n
Fax: 202-362-2009\r\n
mailto:Nightly@nbc.com\r\n<\/p> \r\nABC's World News Tonight\r\n
47 W. 66 St., New York, NY 10023\r\n
Phone: 212-456-7777\r\n
Fax: 212-456-4297\r\n
mailto:PeterJennings@abcnews.com\r\n<\/p> \r\nCBS Evening News\r\n
Phone: 212-975-3691, 202-457-4385\r\n
Fax: 212-975-1893\r\n
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