Blatantly Biased Tabloids and Clueless Mainstream Media Keep Missing the Obvious Big Story at OWS

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Sarah Seltzer

Blatantly Biased Tabloids and Clueless Mainstream Media Keep Missing the Obvious Big Story at OWS
Many mainstream news outlets are flummoxed at best, condescending at worst, when it comes to their coverage of the new movement.

November 8, 2011 |


"Occupy Wall Street, go home!" The New York Post has launched what can best be described, metaphorically, as an "all-out-war" on the protesters camping downtown in Zuccotti Park, making a naked effort to aid any ouster by throwing every filthy hippie stereotype in the book at the occupiers and seeing what sticks (so far, not much).

If the Post, and other media players, stepped away from Zuccotti Park, or flashpoint rallies, they might see something different: seriousness, cooperation, an "open-source movement " that is actually (really, it is!) different in key ways from other social justice coalitions that have come before it, instead of trying to fit this into a traditional media narrative.

Because while the Post's bias is clear, many other mainstream news outlets can be described as flummoxed at best, condescending at worst, when it comes to their coverage of a new movement that is leaderless, has no list of demands, and is aiming to be as much a state of mind as an organization, a multi-faceted sea-change rather than a single entity.

It's been a long time since our country saw the rise of a social movement this broad and ambitious and not devoted to any one issue. There's no rulebook for covering it like one covers a campaign, or a company. And for a powerful corporate media addicted to the "View from Nowhere" approach -- he-said, she-said reporting that pretends to be entirely neutral -- trying to adjust to the movement is not going so well. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/153001/blatantly_biased_tabloids_and_clueless_mainstream_media_keep_missing_the_obvious_big_story_at_ows/

[zbdent]

1. Best thing that Wall Street could hope for is the media ignoring OWS ...

(at least, that was the thinking that the Palinites used when saying about how the "liberally-biased media" was propping up Sarah Palin ... "Why don't you just ignore her?")

Of course, the "liberally-biased media" ignored the world-wide protests against the invasion of Iraq ... it was written off as a handful of "America haters"