As
SOYMB blog has been reporting there has been mass protests across the
world and brutal attempts to suppress them. Yet when it comes to the
media, there is a wide disparity in the reporting of the protests and
demonstrations. Some receive more TV air-time and press headlines
than others.
The
well-respected Glasgow University Media Team research showed that a
search
for "Hong Kong protests" on October 25, 2019,
elicits 282 responses
in the last month in the New York Times, for example, compared
to 20 for
"Chile protests," 43 for
Ecuador and 16 for
Haiti. This disparity cannot be explained due to the protests' size
or significance, the number of casualties or the response from the
authorities. Eighteen
people have died during the ongoing protests in Haiti, 19
(and rising) in Chile, while in Ecuador, protesters
themselves captured over
50 soldiers who had been sent in as Moreno effectively
declared martial law. In contrast, no one has been killed in
Hong Kong, nor has the army been called in. The Chilean government
announced it had arrested over
5,400 people in only a week of protests, a figure more than
double the number arrested in months of Hong Kong demonstrations.
On
Hong Kong, the New
York Times published
three editorials (6/10/19, 8/14/19, 10/1/19),
each lauding the "democracy-minded people" fighting to
limit "the repressive rule of the Chinese Communists,"
condemning the Communist response as evidence of the backward,
"brutal paternalism of that system," in which China
"equates greatness with power and dissent with treachery."
The NYT has
not published any editorials on any of the other protests. The NYT
ridiculed the idea that "foreign forces" (i.e., the US
government) was influencing the protests, calling it a "shopworn
canard" used by the Communist government. Yet the US National
Endowment for Democracy (NED) has officially poured over
$22 million into "identifying new avenues for democracy
and political reform in Hong Kong" or China since 2014. The NYT
editorials did not mention this funding.
In
the cases of the less-covered protests, the "wrong" people
are protesting and the "wrong" governments are doing the
repressing
As
the Washington
Post (10/14/19)
noted on Haiti,“One factor keeping Moïse in power is support from the United States. US officials have been limited in their public comments about the protests.”
On
Ecuador, the State Department has been more forthcoming, issuing
a full
endorsement of
Moreno's neoliberal austerity package:
“The United States supports President Moreno and the Government of Ecuador's efforts to institutionalize democratic practices and implement needed economic reforms…. We will continue to work in partnership with President Moreno in support of democracy, prosperity, and security.”
In
other words, don't expect any angry editorials denouncing US client
states like Haiti or Ecuador, or arguing that the Chilean
government's repression of its protest movement shows the moral
bankruptcy of capitalism. Indeed, corporate media
(e.g., Guardian, 10/8/19; CNN, 10/8/19; USA
Today, 10/10/19)
emphasized the violence of the Ecuadorian protestors while
downplaying Hong Kong's—the New
York Times (6/30/19)
even inventing the phrase "aggressive nonviolence"
Which
protest movements interest corporate media has little to do with
their righteousness or popularity, and much more to do with whom they
are protesting against. If you're fighting against corporate power or
corruption in a US-client state, don't expect many TV cameras to show
up; that revolution is rarely televised.
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