New York Times reporters Monica Davey and Alan Blinder used protests over the weekend in St. Louis, which targeted the controversial shooting death of a young black man by a police officer in nearby Ferguson, to recreate its fawning coverage of the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement: "Protesters March Under Array of Banners."
The planned civil disobedience in St. Louis was dubbed a "Weekend of Resistance" and "Ferguson October" elsewhere but not in the Times, which has a historical habit of mainstreaming left-wing protests.
The paper's Occupy modus operandi is obvious: Make leftist protesters look as mainstream and universal as possible, while still pretending that the blur of liberal causes on display is a natural and vital outgrowth of the original issue under protest – in this case, accusations of racial bias by police. While the Washington Post put the civil disobedience arrests at a convenience store in the headline and first paragraph of its own report from St. Louis, the Times delayed that bit of unflattering news until paragraph seven, blurring it under this soft-edged gush:
They came from places far from Ferguson, Mo., states like California, New York and Oregon. And while the story of a white police officer’s shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson in August was what drew throngs of people to the St. Louis area for a weekend of protest, some also came with sweeping messages about income inequality and the minimum wage, race relations, immigration policy and distrust about police procedures nationwide.
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In the two months since the shooting death of Michael Brown, 18, in suburban Ferguson, a steady stream of demonstrations has often been local and personal, but the events this weekend, and expected to continue through Monday, were a test of the wider reach of efforts that have grown out of the case.
The result was a mix of races and ages. It brought a blur of signs with messages referring to the police officer who shot Mr. Brown, “Indict Darren Wilson Now,” but also broader notions, “Protest then vote.” Among an array of interests gathered: seminarians, voting rights advocates, college students and, perhaps most notably, a sizable contingent from labor unions, many wearing yellow T-shirts with the words: “Justice for all of us.”
“This is the perfect opportunity for organized labor to get out the message of equality in the workplace,” said Mike Louis, the president of the Missouri A.F.L.-C.I.O. “We’re here for economic justice.”
(While the modest crowd that assembled for this left-wing weekend protest garnered a respectful story in the Times, the much larger annual March for Life is consistently ignored by the paper.)
When the Times did bring up the arrests it did so almost apologetically, first noting that "No arrests were made early in the day," as if that canceled out the ones that followed, and leaving out the actual number of people arrested, unlike the Post.
Organizers said 3,000 people took part in Saturday’s rally. The police said they had no estimate of the crowd’s size. No arrests were made early in the day. But late into the night, arrests were reported as a small group of protesters staged a sit-in outside a convenience store in St. Louis and police officers in riot gear moved in, threatening arrests for those who did not leave. Demonstrators said the police used a chemical spray.
The Times even managed to squeeze several paragraphs out of a micro-protest outside an MLB playoff game in St. Louis.
At times, sports teams have served as a cause for troubled communities to rally around, such as the Yankees in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the New Orleans Saints after Hurricane Katrina, and the Boston Red Sox last year after the marathon bombing there.
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That did not appear to be the case outside Busch stadium. There was a small, but vocal crowd of about 30 protesters stationed between the ballpark and a fan zone that had been set up across the street. Before the game, they displayed a few signs and shouted chants -- “Let’s go, justice!” and “While you watch the game, our people die!” -- as fans filed past to enter.
The protesters were speaking out over the divide between white and black America, according to one of the leaders, who identified himself as Rockit Ali. “I just watched a group of people over there sing ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame,’ and sing and smile,” he said. “This is not a happy time. They come here and watch a baseball game while we die, we go out and get pepper sprayed and hit with tear gas for peacefully protesting.”
