On mainstream media collaboration with police violence
BLOG POST posted on May 27, 2010 by mike
Aggressive enforcers
suddenly an ERT cop brought this big gun out and handed it to this tall guy
What are the motivations behind the repetition of police lies that mainstream media and journalists take part in? For example the police statement that they acted to “prevent the escalation of violence,” on Friday, May 21st; and the account that participants “tried to storm the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel”
The footage shown by CTV does begin with violence, though this moment is at least 10 minutes of independent movement by participants a half city block away from the doors of the hotel, as well as being a clearly aggressive moment of police intervention. There is also video footage, with both independent and mainstream media outlets, and probably hundreds of eyewitnesses, who could explain that the efforts to “storm the hotel” are exaggerated.
For nearly an hour, participants maintained a presence at the door or circling the building. When the bus of delegates was spotted it was blocked. For ten minutes the bus was blocked until the police attacked the participants resulting in injuries in order to open and effectuate an exit for the bus.
There was no escalation of violence from participants, just an explosion of police violence. Review all media, independent or otherwise: the photos and video move from calm faces and relaxed body language of all, to police pushing and throwing people and bikes. Exercising violence to achieve their objective, in a non violent situation.
Where was CTV at the outset of the protest? There footage starts at the moment police made their move. How is aggressive police intervention that led to injuries, an act to prevent the escalation of violence? How violent were the attempts to get into the hotel? And why are these questions not the focus of mainstream media?
Why does the VPD have its own news section in the Vancouver Observer, with no quotation marks used anywhere, and no active voice identified as spokesperson for the department.? Nor the name of an author?
Why doesn't the main stream press have rules on citation, Why don't they use quotation marks in their own written news reporting, when citing a third party's claim? (CTV, CBC, the Province, the Vancouver Obersver's Police Endorsement)[Demand a retraction?]
Why are there no authors on CTV's reportage, the story is “by: ctvbc.ca” (it's by the police); or on CBC, it's just 'on' their website, apparently not authored by any known journalist (though with 128 comments, and 40 people recommending the article. Moderated, of course). The province is written by Katie Mercer, the only author to use any quotations, though not with 100% success.kmercer@theprovince.com
They're falsifying news, telling what they told. Gossiping.Politiquing. Protecting the plan of the well paid at all costs. Contact the media, use your name or a handle. Denounce them. Doubt everything they say. There are people everywhere telling the real news; while the story is that all is legitimate and the leaders are shaking hands.
This is another example of why we see the urgent need to build grassroots independant media. It is not through reforming the mainstream that we'll succeed. It's through creating our own radical infrastructure.
The site for the Vancouver local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
Comments
Passive media
I'm sympathetic to the analysis of mainstream outlets as colloaborators but tend to favour the assessment exposing the blatant passivity of the major reportage agencies, who arrange and distribute the missives fed to them by authorities and elite primary definers according to a repertorie of thematic categories. In short, we can rely on them to feed what they're fed.
CTV
Good ol' Cop-TV continuing the Olympic legacy of collaborating with cops. Great post mike.
The Vancouver Observer did
The Vancouver Observer did slip by printing the press release in this case. Why we print them normally is to give the public the same acces to them that we have. We call them what they are: Press release. The author is: press release. This is to indicate that this is just the police side of story. On the demonstration, we took the story much further and interviewed an organizer and a demonstrator who was arrested. These stories went into why people went out to protest and what happened to them. They have been read by thousands of people already and we have a link back to the coverage on this website (Vancouver Media Coop.) Here are the links to the stories.
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/2010/05/26/social-worker-alleg...
And:
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/solomonpost/2010/05/22/what-reall...
third person writing
While I appreciate the effort that Linda Solomon put into the article at the previous link, I believe that the problem still exists with the Vancouver Observer's web page "Police Blotter".
In fact, there is no indication what so ever that the writer IS the Vancouver Police Department. I'm hearing that the words "press release" are meant to mean "VPD press release", and I can assume that the voice of the third person is expected to be understood as 'the way' of police media spokespersons. Also there is another writer on the page, the 'police's' 'blotter'; is he a cop too, I guess we should assume so amidst all this grey scale. What is clear is that the 'writer' moves from unbiased "Vancouver police..." to statements of fact in the first person "Protesters...". I would expect most writers to recognize the bias in the press release as well as the Vancouver Observers web page (http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/policeblotter), but the general public? I think the pigs plan for the fact that they won't.
I believe the problems I stated above exist for the Vancouver Observer's integrity as an independant voice. The cops use violence, and also use the media to cover that up or to justify it. Providing a platform for the popo's version of things, and not a crystal clear identification that this is the police version and potentially biased (or down right lies), is shoddy in my eyes (at best passive collaboration). I would encourage the Vancouver Observer to change their policy about that page.