OWS May Day march “downsized” by corporate news

Yesterday’s May Day march was Occupy Wall Street’s largest ever, with one NY Times estimate topping out at 30,000 demonstrators.

The exact crowd size was hard to gauge from the street, with events planned from morning till night in dozens of locations, people constantly coming and going and police controlling crowd density and flow to prevent traffic shutdowns or overcrowding.

As pictured, from Broadway and Canal, the streets were packed in both directions as far as the eye could see by about 6:30 pm.

Tellingly, the rest of corporate media didn’t see it this way.

Reuters: “dud”
AP, WaPo, NY Daily News: “hundreds”
NY Post: “a joke”
CNN: “fizzled”
Businessweek: “weak”

This, of course comes the same day the head of the NY Post, WSJ and Fox was declared “not fit” to manage the News Corp media empire after a year-long inquiry by Parliament.

When an event overwhelms the venue it was planned for, it’s a success. But the MSM wants you to think there’s nothing to see here. NYPD aerial photos are routinely scrubbed, even though they use crowd size estimation experts to plan responses.

CBS video feeds showed only “the tip of the iceberg” in some crowd shots. Even the NY Times website deemed the story unworthy of the front page.

The opinion writers have every right to denounce the movement, its tactics or aims, but the “news” division has a responsibility to present the most basic facts and they did not.

In corporate media, the chain of command is clear. There are lots of reporters, editors, researchers and photographers, but the bosses end up telling the story from the top down, and employees are commonly gagged by non-disclosure agreements from revealing the story behind the fairy tales that go to press.

This brings us right back to the main contention behind OWS. Every day, in many ways, wealth is used to gain unfair advantages in debating social or political issues, preventing the public from making informed decisions.

Rupert Murdoch is chief among today’s biggest propagandists, as Fox remains the #1 media source in the US. Murdoch and his son James led News Corp as a massive phone hacking and bribery operation gave way to indefensible cover ups and influence peddling at the highest levels.

Within a day of the ruling by the Parliamentary panel, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) dispatched a letter to the FCC chairman reminding him of clear-cut violations of ‘character’ expectations for licensees entrusted with serving the public interest.

The lack of serious coverage by corporate news of News Corp’s scandal exemplifies media-as-usual, continuing to distort, deny or scrub the most basic facts affecting everyday people.

This entry was posted on 05/03/2012 at 4:04 am and is filed under Around NY, New York City, Occupy Wall Street, Top News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.