The following is a long comment I was going to post at Corrente - but Corrente is down for now. And the comment appears to fit here (in response to this Cannonfire post). It was originally in response to a comment by Fran (at Corrente), who seemed distressed that the MSM coverage of the OWS "day of action" was trying hard to make OWS look violent and crazy.
[BTW I was watching Tim Poole livestream the Wall Street protest on the morning of Nov 17. While I was watching, I saw a group of kids coming through and the protesters parting (to form an open path) and calling out to make way for the kids to get through. The line of cops let them through but then appeared to cut off and block passage of one of the adults who appeared to be escorting them.]
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Fran is right. I find this interesting - and I find myself wondering exactly what's going on. Of course the 1% will go nuts. Of course there's the Producers->Editor->Reporter directives and pressure. Various filters (ala Manufacturing Consent). Etc. But it seems that EVERYONE in the MSM has begun singing from the same songbook. About a week ago Yves noted the shift in the NY Times coverage with OWS going from "heroes to goats". Only a few weeks ago, on the ABC News website, the main photo showed a (normal, slightly heroic looking) women protester captioned "I am an American".
Yes, at the very beginning OWS was subject to much MSM ridicule, and there has been plenty of negative coverage throughout, but for a time, quite a bit of the coverage was somewhat positive.
So there's been a radical negative shift in coverage, and it feels nigh universal.
For the print version of the NY Times, the only coverage of yesterdays protests (based on a brief skim) appears to consist of a photo on front page (showing an apparently violent scene, with no indication of the scope of the protest), and a minimalist story on page A22 (relatively short article with some text on A22 and remainder on A23).
For CBS Evening News
"Organizers promised tens of thousands of demonstrators disrupting business as usual here in New York. Frankly, we've seen a fraction of that number, closer to 1000....Now the main event is tonight, a rally scheduled for the Brooklyn Bridge, which of course would disrupt rush hour again. Organizers are talking about tens of thousands of protesters. However, so far Scott, the number of protesters in the hundreds."
New York Daily News took a similar tack.
When I looked the primary OWS story online today was "I WIN! Bloomberg declares victory vs.protesters. The thousands of protesters flooding lower Manhattan seemed to have worn out their welcome." Story starts with "They didn't occupy Wall Street for long, shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, or win many new fans....Their vow to get many more out in the streets fizzled, Mayor Bloomberg declared. 'Occupy Wall Street had predicted on their website that tens of thousands would be participating in today's protests, but there have been far fewer - and so far they have caused what can accurately be described as minimal disruptions to our city,' he crowed....'Today they proved that they're able to piss off the 99% by stopping them from getting home,' said City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens). 'In my opinion, this is their last gasp. With silly stunts like this, they've angered people they're supposed to represent.'"
Now of course this is the New York Daily News, so unsurprizing....but this type of narrative is everywhere.
So the narrative in sites like CBS and NY Daily News is - it all fizzled - not much happened - they just annoyed people - move along.
With ABC News:
The main headline most of yesterday was "Occupy Wall Streets 'Day of Disruption': WN Live Updates"
Now, the quote directly implies that OWS called for "A day of disruption". OWS called for a "Day of Mass Action" or "A day of action". Nowhere have I been able to find OWS or OWS participants calling for "A day of disruption" (e.g. look at occupywallst.org). There's also the headline yesterday on ABC that referred to "Occupy Wall Street's 'Day of Destruction'".
[I wrote to ABC early yesterday, but of course this was not corrected.]
The 'Day of Disruption" language appears to have started with ABC, then propagated everywhere (shaping everyone's perception of what OWS was seeking to do yesterday).
ABC and FOX also propagated the false meme that OWS wanted to shut down the subways.
There's an Occupy Wall Street "must reads" tab at the top of the main ABC News page - this leads to:"Wall St. Commuter: 'We’re All 99%. This Is Ridiculous.'" Article starts with "As part of Occupy Wall Street’s plans for its largest protest ever, occupiers may garner more disdain from the 99 percent than the 1 percent by attempting to clog New York’s subway system." There's also the link to the video:"NYC Commuters Find Protest 'Shameful'"
The point of going to the subways was outreach (as I noted in a comment above), not an attempt to block the subways. From occupywallst.org:
LUNCH: Occupy The Subways - 3:00 p.m. We will start by Occupying Our Blocks! Then throughout the five boroughs, we will gather at 16 central subway hubs and take our own stories to the trains, using the "People's Mic".
The ABC Nightly News coverage for Nov 17 (this would have been simultaneous with the CBS News report linked above). Excerpts:
"Tonght - boiling point"...."Our reporter askes those protesters - what do you really want"
"As we come on the air tonight, the Occupy Wall Street movement is reaching a flash point"..."This is what it looks like from the sky tonight. Masses of people taking to the streets here in NY City"...."Arrests, chaos, and clashes with police"..."bracing for chaos as the portesters swarm the Brooklyn Bridge"..."ABCs Dan Harris on the front line, asking demonstrators today'Just what do you want from all of this'".."good evening to you from the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, where protesters managed to shut down both lanes of trafic on this historic span"...."This massive protest march tonight"... "Now after two months of marches and chants there remains a simple question. What's the concrete goal of this movement..."
ABC Then shows the whackiest signs and most clueless protesters.
For example, one protester: "the concrete goal is to claim the concrete. This is our park..."
The signs shown include signs such as "eradicate males", etc.
[So unlike NY Daily News and CBS, ABC's narritive is - huge turnout - massive number of protesters - man, they're whacky - I can't understand what they're protesting about - they're weird - a freakshow of crazy clueless people swarming the bridge]
On ABC News online today, the primary Occupy related headline is:
"Occupy Overtime. Who really wins in protests?" Clicking the link leads to the story "Occupy Protests Across the Country Take Toll on City Budgets" [Talking about how the protests are costing cities money, with no consideration of the wasteful, overwhelming policing overkill.]
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It seems that almost all the media is singing from the same hymnbook.
It's literally like watching the propaganda parodies in the movie Robocop.
I've been around a while, and I'm used to this kind of thing....except....
the simultaneity of the shift across all the media... and the magnitude of the shift....and the journalistic errors (yes, the MSM is really sloppy, but the degree of false/erronious material here is striking).
So I'm wondering....exactly what is happening here?
One thing that strikes me - a couple weeks ago, Democrats were looking at using OWS to run for election. That Democratic endorsement might have given OWS legitimacy in the MSM, producing some favorable coverage. Now that Democrats have largely dumped it, the Democratic-affiliated segment of the press no longer has a reason to treat it at all properly/accurately.
Also, in general people (and especially the elite) will favor perceived "winners". Since most cities appear to have been successful in evicting the Occupation encampments, this may foster the perception in the MSM that Occupy is "weak" - and out come the knives.
Thoughts on what we're seeing here?
[Update: Potentially another part of the answer - corporate lobbying machine going into overdrive.]
