Rage Against the Big Media Machine

The TV news networks knew that the protests in New York would be a story. They may not have known that they themselves would become part of that story.

On Tuesday afternoon, with virtually no publicity beforehand, a few hundred boisterous demonstrators gathered in front of Fox News headquarters in Midtown, chanting "Shut up Fox," "Fox Hates Freedom," and "Racist, Sexist, Antigay; Rupert Murdoch, Go Away." The "Shut-Up-A-Thon," organized by Code Pink, attracted dozens of riot-equipped police and drew a large crowd inside the protected Fox courtyard, including a chuckling "Big Story" host John Gibson. Bill O'Reilly, Fox's lead political propagandist and chief inspiration for the shut up imperative, did not make an appearance, though rumor had it that he was taping on the ground floor studio during the festivities. New York's local Fox station showed up to cover the action. "I don't make the decisions," the cameraman said. "I just do what I'm told."

The next day, a few thousand people assembled for an anti-corporate "March on the Media," organized by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). First, at CBS, protesters chanted, "Two, Four, Six, Eight, Separate the Press and State," haranguing the network for devoting a mere one percent of coverage to antiwar protests in the run-up to the Iraq war. As the demonstrators marched down 6th Avenue toward CNN, the white-suited Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping led a public recitation of the First Amendment. The crowd reached Fox HQ around 8:30 PM, just as O'Reilly was interviewing Bono on the big screen. "Every one of us, despite what we work on, has got to become a media activist," said Code Pink's Andrea Buffa.

Robert Greenwald, director of the Fox exposé Outfoxed, agrees. "People are realizing that this has got to be one of our central issues," he says. "You can't have a democracy and a media that consistently sides with the Republicans and conservatives."

A newfound contingent of left-leaning bloggers amplified the message of the protesters. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, whose popular blog Dailykos.com receives 350,000 hits a day, spent the week blogging from The Tank, a storefront performance arts space on 42nd & 8th converted into a progressive haven during the RNC. Bloggers used the free Ethernet connections, New Democratic Majority and Democracy for America passed out literature, and Janeane Garofalo broadcast live with Air America Radio.

"In the past, if the mainstream media took a couple of pictures of a protest you were lucky," says Kos. "Now, there's tons of amateur photographers and five or six street reports combined can make a legitimate story." This means CNN has less power to dictate what is and isn't a story.

On Tuesday evening, a panel of influential bloggers assembled in the East Village at PS 122 to discuss the potential impact of blogs and other alternative media on the political process, including Jeff Jarvis of buzzmachine.com and Douglas Rushkoff. "The message of the mass media can now be challenged," says Jay Rosen, chair of NYU's journalism school and PressThink blogger. "The era of the gatekeeper of news is crumbling. Now we have gate openers."

The gates are opening slowly. The major TV networks and cable news channels devoted the majority of their scant coverage of the protests to arrests, not message. Yet there is still a marked change from the atmosphere at the conventions four years ago.

"In 2000, only dedicated activists were making and criticizing media," says FAIR's Peter Hart. "Now media criticism and alternative media are much more popular and accessible. It also doesn't hurt that big media has gotten worse."

Ari Berman

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