:: to the teeth ::    thoughts on social justice, medicine, race, hope and beats

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." :: Arundhati Roy ::

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." :: Alice Walker ::
Wednesday, May 05, 2004  

Media coverage of the March for Women's Lives

I've got a ton of thoughts on this topic, but I'll be brief here, since I've got to get back to some work. Today I saw a FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) update about media coverage of the historic March on Women's Lives, and it revealed how the March received 3 times less attention than a much smaller march organized by the Promise Keepers (some info on the Promise Keepers -- Facts and Myths here) back in 1997. The Promise Keepers (500,000-750,000 people) had 26 media reports, and the March for Women's lives (1.15 million people) had a total of 8 reports from 3 major news networks.

Also, two days after the march, I was watching a news show on TV (was it Fox channel? I can't remember), where the interviewer showed footage from the March for Women's Lives, at which more than 50 different people spoke (possibly 100), and of all the footage, ONE spoken word artist's controversial language was talked about and shown TWICE ("we can't even un-mute this video clip; seems the marchers were mostly radical feminists"). Yup, all radical feminists. The more we're portrayed like that -- and we meaning average Americans who come together over a common belief, come together over something that's being taken away from us by this president's administration and secretly by others on a state level -- the LESS credible we seem.

In talking to a few acquaintances about the March, several responses to why they didn't go was because they're not the "marcher" type. Ah, yes, that type. The yelling screaming anarchist marcher type who likes to cause a raucous. Americans just don't like to protest, march, or hold our elected officials accountable. Why is it that this concept of marching, rallying, protesting, etc is so foreign to us (even our anti-war marches were sporadic and not as well attended compared to the anti-war sentiment), while in Spain there's a train bombing and two days later 1/4th of the country is marching on the streets?

posted by Unknown | 5/05/2004 02:38:00 PM | |


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