Another Media Blackout (was Re: [IFWP] Police use pepper spray, rubber bullets on WTO protesters)

[Jay Fenello <Jay@Fenello.com>]

Well, it's 3:30 a.m. EST, and I have seen very
little coverage of the riots.  It's seems that
the Pete Rose story is a much higher priority
topic tonight!

In other words, I'd say were in the midsts of
another media blackout.  For those who missed
the last one, there is a good summary at:
    http://www.icann.org/comments-mail/icann-current/msg00677.html

Consider the situation.  We have a World Trade
Organization meeting in Seattle, one that has
delegates arriving from over 130 countries of
the world, one that has been disrupted by riots
in Seattle.

The riots are so bad that police have reportedly
fired rubber bullets, and used tear gas and pepper
spray to disperse the thousands of protesters who
took to the streets on Tuesday.  Riots that were
so bad that the opening WTO meeting was canceled.
Riots that were so bad that the mayor of Seattle
imposed a 7 p.m.-to-dawn curfew, and has called
out the national guard.

We practically have marshal law in Seattle, and
yet, the Network news has done very little to
cover the fiasco.

On my cable system, I get all four networks,
and I get CNN, CNNFN, CNN Headline News, CNBC,
MSNBC, and Fox News.  After hours of channel
surfing, I have very little to report.  Other
than the three minute leader that is run at
the top of the newscasts, I have seen little
in depth coverage.

[Compare this to the recent coverage given to
the Kennedy search and rescue.  We had non-stop
coverage on every network for hours and hours,
with live pictures of the empty ocean, and
little else to report.]

The media is obviously hiding this story!

One blatant example is the current story running
on MSNBC:  http://www.msnbc.com/news/340805.asp#BODY
It's one of the longest I've seen, yet it doesn't
even mention why so many people are protesting.
It's like the question WHY doesn't even exist!

Not only are they hiding it, but they are even
taking sides.  The one in-depth news report that
I did see was on MSNBC and featured a spokesperson
for the White House.  Unfortunately, she
characterized the protestors as a confused bunch
of disparate parties who were all protesting a
disjunctive and contradictory slate of issues.

Why the bias? -- you ask.

The truth of the matter is that the riots in
Seattle, the fight over ICANN, and the media
blackout given to both topics, are all related.

The riots in Seattle are about the loss of U.S.
sovereignty to multinational corporations, just
like the Domain Name Wars were about the loss of
the Internet to the same multinational corporations.

Not possible! -- you say.

Consider that the media is owned by these same
multinational corporations:

"The notion that journalism can regularly produce a product
that violates the fundamental interests of media owners and
advertisers ... is absurd."
    --  Robert McChesney, journalist and author

Consider that while knowledgeable people recognize
the bias of the media in the U.S., the vast majority
of Americans doubt that it is possible:

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one
of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country
has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media
all objectivity - much less dissent. "
    --  Gore Vidal, novelist and critic

Consider the implications of this email:

"Corporations have been enthroned .... An era of corruption
in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor
to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the
people... until wealth is aggregated in a few hands ...
and the Republic is destroyed."
    --  Abraham Lincoln

Until next time . . .

Jay.


At 09:31 PM 11/30/99 , baptista@iname.com wrote:
>the national guard has just landed in seattle.  should be an interesting
>day tommorrow - a city full of pepper spray, tear gas, tree huggers,
>labour unions, national guard and of course el presidente clinton.
>Clintons gonna need more then a cigar tommorrow to pull it off.
>
>On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Jeff Williams wrote:
>
> > Michael and all,
> >
> >   I am watching CNN right now and Seattle has declared a
> > civil emergency and the trade talks have been shut down
> > temporarily.  More than 20,000 AFL-CIO staged a rally
> > at the Seattle stadium protesting the non representation of
> > Unions in the trade talks.  A curfew will be in effect in
> > Seattle in two hours from now.
> >
> > msondow@iciiu.org wrote:
> >
> > > You wrote:
> > >
> > >    >Also, according to NBC news, the
> > >    >reason everyone is protesting is
> > >    >over "jobs."  What a crock!
> > >
> > > The CBC just broadcast on shortwave radio an interview with an A.F.of 
> L. economist who said that the WTO rules and the WTO judiciary panels are 
> all one-sided because there are no representatives of labor. Sound familiar?
> > >
> > > ========================
> > > Michael Sondow                        ICIIU
> > > iciiu@iciiu.org              www.iciiu.org
> > > ========================
> >
> > Regards,
> > --
> > Jeffrey A. Williams
> > Spokesman INEGroup (Over 95k members strong!)
> > CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
> > Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
> > E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
> > Contact Number:  972-447-1894
> > Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208
> >

Respectfully,

Jay Fenello,
New Media Relations
------------------------------------
http://www.fenello.com  770-392-9480

"We are creating the most significant new jurisdiction
we've known since the Louisiana purchase, yet we are
building it just outside the constitution's review."
   --  Larry Lessig, Harvard Law School, on ICANN