Notes on the Atrocities reports on how last Thursday’s protests in Portland were treated in the local media:
In my hometown (Portland, Oregon), there was a protest last night that attracted some thousands of citizens (numbers are always vague) who were sufficiently angry enough to try to block roads and bridges. Except for a couple of skirmishes, the protesters managed to stand peacefully gathered for six or seven hours. On a day when the country has gone to war, you’d imagine that some latitude would be given for these assembling citizens.
Of course you’d be wrong: the news coverage was almost shockingly martial. When speaking to police, local TV news reporters spoke in a collegial “we,’ as in: “How are ‘we’ going to handle this situation?” The AP headline was “More than 100 arrested in Portland protest.” (As opposed to, say, “Thousands voice opposition to war.”) And in a slideshow by the Oregonian (the local paper), the photos tell na even more skewed story. Of the nine related to the Portland protest, only one shows a substantially un-editorialized picture of the anti-war protesters. Of the rest, three show them next to police in riot gear, and three more show them facing off with a tiny, quickly-evaporated group of pro-war demonstrators. The final two are un-editorialized pro-war demonstrators.