NY Times coverage of peace demonstrations

[Doug Millison]

ACTION ALERT:
Can the New York Times Count-- or Quote-- Peace
Activists?

October 2, 2001

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the New York
Times has downplayed
and distorted peace rallies and demonstrations against
a military response.

After thousands of anti-war activists gathered in
Washington, D.C. on
September 29, the Times responded with a 10-sentence
story, under the
headline "Protesters in Washington Urge Peace with
Terrorists." Given that a
call for bringing terrorists to justice through
non-military means was
central to the rallies, the headline is a gross
mischaracterization of the
protesters' message.

The Times also misreported other basic facts, like the
size of the crowd in
Washington. The Times estimated that a "few hundred
protesters" were on
hand, while the official police estimate was 7,000
(Washington Post,
9/30/01). One only had to watch the live coverage on
C-SPAN to know the
Times was way off.

The next day, the Times ran a slightly longer story
about the second day of
protests on page B7. The photo that accompanied the
story, however, was
dominated by a sign held by one of the
counter-demonstrators: "Osama thanks
fellow cowards for your support."

The rallies held in Washington were not the first time
the paper downplayed
peace activism. On September 21, the paper reported on
the protests that
were held on about 150 campuses across the country.
But the perspectives of
the thousands of students who participated in the day
of action were almost
entirely absent. Of the 11 students quoted in the
article, only one voiced
an anti-war opinion.  Instead, the article was
dominated by students who
supported going to war, or those who could not recall
seeing any anti-war
sentiment on campus.


ACTION: Please call on the New York Times to improve
its coverage of the
peace movement by including the perspectives of
anti-war activists in its
reporting about the aftermath of the September 11
terrorist attacks.

CONTACT:
New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036-3959
mailto:nytnews at nytimes.com
Toll free comment line: 1-888-NYT-NEWS

[...]

FAIR
                             (212) 633-6700
                          http://www.fair.org/
                          E-mail: fair at fair.org

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone.
http://phone.yahoo.com