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The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Crumbs

19 comments on Crumbs

Crumbs
: Well, the New York Times did cover the anti-terrorism demonstration (cover as in how Paris Hilton’s clothes cover her, cover as in how well Rudy Guliani’s hair covers his head, cover as in cover your ass by putting it in somewhere rather than cover the waterfront, which is supposed to be your job). Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. I’ll spare you the first eight paragraphs of the story. This is the ninth:

In contrast, a heavily policed march in central Baghdad on Wednesday, organized peacefully by the country’s major political parties, drew thousands of Iraqis to protest attacks by guerrilla fighters, which have injured and killed Iraqi civilians as well as occupiers.

19 responses to “Crumbs”

  1. Kurt Avatar
    Kurt

    Disgraceful. They were careful to mention that it was “heavily policed” (does this imply, “controlled by the police”, or what?). I’ve never heard of a large demonstration that wasn’t heavily policed. Anything else would be particularly irresponsible in a place like Iraq where people with the guts to demonstrate against the terrorists are in real danger from those terrorists.

  2. MommaBear Avatar
    MommaBear

    “Occupiers”….BS !! LIBERATORS!!

  3. King of Fools Avatar
    King of Fools

    But hey, I think those are two of the greatest similies I have ever seen. (Hilton/Guliani) I will be chuckling at that one all day.

  4. lgude Avatar
    lgude

    Just to point out something that seems to be obviously emerging: The Iraqi people are really getting wised up to the way the media is sandbagging the Iraqi people’s efforts and the coalition’s efforts. I THINK THIS demo IS PROBABLY A CONSCIOUS EFFORT TO FIGHT BACK. There have been plenty of posts from the Iraqui bloggers which relate incidents of where Iraqis show awareness of media supporting the anti American forces. I hope they are not discouraged and keep the demos up and bloggers keep outing the media until they have to report it. It is a direct way to help ensure that they end up liberated.

  5. Oliver Avatar
    Oliver

    The story was covered on ABC’s World News Tonight. I wonder, where were all the whiners when the media refused to give coverage to all the anti-war protesters?

  6. Lola Avatar
    Lola

    As one who majored in journalism, I’m deeply ashamed of that profession. I’m just so glad I never worked as a journalist. I realized that this was not for me when I asked “are you satisfied with the way your team played” to the coach of the Gallaudet College team that lost the game.
    In retrospect, I probably would be one of those anti-journalists (meaning, one who asks all those annoying questions that journalists are too chicken to ask or too much in lockstep with the party line).
    After I finish my class final project, I’m going to be putting in serious time writing pointed letters to the media leaders and shakers.

  7. jerry Avatar
    jerry

    Jeff,
    You basically are or were a reporter/columnist/editor, right?
    Why not pick up a phone and get ask the Times, et. al., for an explanation of their lack of coverage? You could presumably get answers that few of the other bloggers could, and maybe by doing so, even help the Times better their coverage.

  8. Brian Perry Avatar
    Brian Perry

    It looks like the fear level in Iraq has been lowered to the point where concerned citizens can have a shot at shaping their own future.
    With the internet, these kinds of brave individuals can make their voices heard around the world.
    It was truly inspiring to see Iraqis, organized by Iraqis, out in the street freely demonstrating for their future. Does anyone else have goosebumps?

  9. A_Reader Avatar
    A_Reader

    Oliver,
    What are you talking about? I remember seeing those Stalinist stooges like ANSWER every time more than 200 of those proto-fascists gathered anywhere. Saw them on all the major networks, papers, etc.

  10. lk Avatar
    lk

    We cannot identify the enemy in Iraq, but we got one at home. It’s the big, bad media. Terminator 4 could show the battles between the machines (media) and real men (John Connor, blogger).

  11. Gabriel Gonzalez Avatar
    Gabriel Gonzalez

    This is freakish: It looks like a mass conspiracy, perhaps unconscious, on the part of major media to black out news that is both good and important in its own right. Is it that the Media – gosh, I hadn’t previously thought of the media as quite so monolithic – only focus on the negative? Are they ignoring this because they are mostly liberals who want to embarass Bush even at the expense of the expressed desires of the Iraqi people, not to mention the interests of objectivity, balance and information providing? Would they be covering this if Clinton were president in a similar situation? I’m truly dumbfounded.

  12. Steve Teeter Avatar
    Steve Teeter

    Igude: I have NO DOUBT that this was a conscious effort to fight back against media distortion, particularly arab media distortion. Zeyad’s translations of the signs indicate that many of them were aimed straight at the arab media, criticizing them in ways arabs in other countries cannot fail to understand. Apparantly the arab news media describe terrorist attacks in Iraq as “resistance” against coalition forces. So I was particularly struck by a banner that, according to Zeyad, read: “Arab media: This Is Not Resistance!”
    This seems to me a very clever and media-savvy move by the demo’s organizers, bypassing the news editors and going straight to the audience. There’s nothing the arab news media can do to change the message of the banners, they can only try to damp down the story by not showing photos from the demonstration. And in the age of the Internet, not even that will work. Nice move.

  13. Angie Schultz Avatar
    Angie Schultz

    The Houston Chronicle has the march on their front page today, big photo, above the fold.
    And that’s it. No inside story, just the photo captions. I’d link to the paper’s site, but they have very few photos on the web site. I didn’t see these on the main web page.
    Caption reads:
    A heavily policed march in central Baghdad on Wednesday, organized peacefully by dozens of Iraq’s major political parties and religious groups, drew thousands into the street to protest the attacks by guerilla fighters have injured and killed Iraqi civilians as well as U.S. troops and others.
    I’ll put more on my blog in a few minutes, but there’s not much more.

  14. Eric in Denver Avatar
    Eric in Denver

    Jeff,
    In Denver we are lucky. The Rocky Mountain News sent 2 reporters to Iraq and this is what they found.
    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_2494777,00.html
    It starts:
    BAGHDAD, Iraq – I expected none of this.
    We were shot at not even once. Never in the nearly nine hours we have spent walking and driving through the streets of this city did anyone flash as much as a cap pistol at us.
    This is not the Baghdad everyone has told us to fear, the one they for months have shown on television at home. Not a single car exploded. There were no dead bodies that needed to be stepped over.

  15. PhotoDude Avatar
    PhotoDude

    Oliver, exactly which protests are you talking about? I saw considerable coverage recently in London, I’ve seen it in Baghdad whenever a hundred or two protest the “occupation,” I’ve seen the protests in DC, in San Fran, in NYC, and right here in Atlanta.
    Which anti-war protests has the media hidden from me? They may not have gotten the column inches the protesters might have liked, but they were covered, in their own freestanding article, in most of the major media outlets.
    It was easy to find. Finding coverage of yesterday’s anti-terror protests has, by contrast, been quite a scavneger hunt.

  16. a friend Avatar
    a friend

    A shocking disparity.
    Ten years ago we could get undercovered news after the fact via paper subscriptions. Now any of us who wish can get news before it hits the big commercial channels. It’s particularly frustrating to anticipate that they will minimize or skew a story and then to have those predictions borne out.
    I have two unanswered questions:
    a) Is there a conscious attempt to brainwash people through the major newswires and television licenses, or is it an unconscious artifact of the lack of intellectual diversity in these businesses?
    b) Do these people realize they are digging their own grave by skewing their programming so dramatically? The pressure is building….

  17. alan Avatar
    alan

    This is a good place for Mr. Okrent [sp?] to start in his efforts to police the NYT, perhaps the blogosphere should inundate him with requests for a review of coverage?

  18. Jack Tanner Avatar
    Jack Tanner

    ‘I wonder, where were all the whiners when the media refused to give coverage to all the anti-war protesters?’ As if. If it weren’t for the constant coverage on CNN, C-SPAN, the front pages of the NYT and Boston Globe I wouldn’t have seen it at all. It was some real ugly TV.

  19. green ball Avatar
    green ball

    It isn’t just the larger news media that has given this story less coverage than it deserves — where are the onliine voices that normally champion bloggers coverage and influence. I’m talking about Dave Winer, Doc Searls, or for that matter Oliver Willis. Willis basically said “so what, anti-war protesters didn’t get coverage”. Sorry Oliver you seemed to miss the message. A large crowd of Iraqi citizens openly voiced hatred for Saddam, disgust towards the Arab status quo, and presented a very liberal (and for westerners a familiar) protest message. That image would not have been imaginable without the overthrow of Saddam.
    Maybe as elections approach, people can’t see past their hatred of Bush for signs of positive progress in a conflict they neither supported or understood. They distrust the intension of the Bush administration, while ignoring actual positive evidence of its consequence. What I want to say to all the Bush haters is — Grow up! Stop being so cynical and shallow. Your prejudice is blinding you. You claim to be above it. Prove it!