Question: What happens when between 250,000 and 500,000 non-violently people voice their views against a misguided, directionless war.....but the media cameras fail to show up?
Answer: we don't know, but we're about to find out. The last time a US President so blatently ignored the will of the American people , Richard Nixon was impeached and forced to resign the office of the presidency.
Be sure to read my post, 200,000 Anti-War Protesters in Washington DC, Yet Cable News Fails to Send Reporters, Cameras.
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500,000 People Vanish in Washington, DC by Ron Scott, columnist of the Detroit News.....
Imagine 500,000 people marching down the meandering thoroughfares of Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th Street and Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. They are headed for a date with destiny and the promise of peace, conjoined with a challenge for justice. How could they vanish from the headlines?
Rod Serling, the brilliant creator/writer of “The Twilight Zone,” might have written this intro to one of his teleplays during the 1960s. But it didn’t happen then. It happened this weekend, with our media, in our country, in our time.
“They came from as far away as Alaska and California,” reported Abayomi Azikiwe of the Pan African Newswire, “from Europe to the nation's capital itself, to make a clear statement that United States military forces should withdraw immediately from Iraq. Honest crowd estimates of the demonstration ranged from 500,000-600,000 (some even thought there were more) making it the largest demonstration in the capital since the winter of 2003.”
Journalist Azikiwe rode the bus with 200 Detroiters who attended this national anti-war march in Washington, DC and stood on the Mall with thousands who watched speakers ranging from the Rev. Jesse Jackson to Cindy Sheehan to activist Curtis Muhammad from New Orleans. He provided a full report on this historic event.
But the corporate media was nowhere to be found. The demonstration was lost on CNN. It was buried on MSNBC. It barely escaped a muffle on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and the old, reliable NPR (National Public Radio). If you had been watching C-SPAN, you would have seen the speakers (but not the march), but how many people watches C-SPAN?
The media failed to cover the largest antiwar demonstration in America since the Vietnam era. That’s not happening in “The Twilight Zone.” That is reality today.
Where were they? Covering local news at home? In Iraq? Or covering the Ashton Kucher/Demi Moore wedding?
No. They had a date with Rita. Celeb anchorpersons, clad in Tommy Hilfiger and St. John knits, were standing in knee-deep water as a backdrop. How many stories about Rita did we need? It’s a tragedy, of course, but in Washington, a challenge to the Bush administration was in full gear, and the cameras, recorders, and reporters’ notepads were missing. If it wasn’t real, it would be science fiction.
The failure of the media to cover this, perhaps one of the most important events of this young century, challenges those who read this blog and those who consider themselves to be committed Americans on the left, right, and in between, to fight for full disclosure and total coverage of what’s happening in our communities throughout the nation. We’ve seen too many “in-bed-with” media, too many laughing anchorpersons, and too many roving reporters who scream only after the story is over.
The Bush administration needs to be covered, and covered seriously. To any of you who remember history prior to 1980, lesser failures on the part of a President brought his resignation.
That was Richard M. Nixon. Today, the chief executive of this country, and an administration which has clearly attempted to silence the media, needs to be accessed, researched, and critiqued—even when the winds are blowing in Texas.
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