Most everyone knows that corporate media sees the world through a different lens than independent media and the rest of us. Nowhere is this more evident than in the coverage of the largest political demonstration in U.S. history. Last Sunday, on the eve of the Republican National Convention, a half-million people (according to one police estimate reported by the New York Times) protested the war on Iraq and George Bush’s presidency in the streets of Manhattan. That much is undisputed; but only that much.
According to Todd Purdam’s analysis in the New York Times, the street protests were “elaborately planned and heavily Democratic.” Meanwhile, Kristin Jones’s account for The Nation ended with the observation, “The Bush team has tried to portray the protests as the work of the Democratic Party. But while Kerry may wish he had the power to draw hundreds of thousands of passionate supporters to the streets, today’s young protestors are nobody’s baby.”
Two accounts of the same event seen through different lenses provide strong evidence that objectivity is little more than a myth. But that’s old news. What’s interesting in contrasting these two accounts is that one—the New York Times analysis—was dishonest and unfair. You’d think that it would be hard to decipher the truth in this matter, but thanks to CSPAN, it’s not. Thanks to the live, unblinking-eye coverage provided by CSPAN, it’s fairly easy to expose not-so-well-hidden agendas in this coverage. CSPAN relied heavily on fixed camera locations that just sat there, unblinkingly transmitting what transpired with verité-like precision.
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