The issue of the media has come up in various discussions within Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). There seems to be a general sense among many SDS members that our actions should be “media friendly.” The idea is that we will then receive “good press,” resulting in support from those who see us in the media. The experience of many members of ACTIVATE (Grand Rapids SDS) is quite the contrary. We have engaged the media repeatedly and come out with little to nothing show for our efforts.
MARCH 15, 2008: A CASE STUDY
Our latest interaction with the media occurred Saturday March 15th at a march we held to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq. Coming off of some negative experiences with the media, (some our fault, others not) we put a lot of energy into trying to “get it right” this time.
Here is what we did…
Two weeks before the event, we sent out a press release to all of the media contacts for the various outlets in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The media release was as follows:
Media Release
Contacts:
*name and information removed*
*name and information removed*
Email – sds@activategr.orgANTIWAR MARCH PLANNED TO PROTEST IRAQ OCCUPATION
On March 15th, ACTIVATE, an anti-war group from Grand Rapids, is holding a march to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the illegal occupation of Iraq. People will be meeting on Saturday March 15th at 12:00 PM at Heartside Park (located just south of the corner of Ionia and Cherry)
For five years, the leaders of this country–both Democrats and Republicans–have led an illegal occupation of Iraq. This occupation has claimed the lives of over 1.2 million Iraqis and over 4000 Americans. Politicians continually refuse to listen to the demands of the majority of Iraqis calling for the occupation of their country to end NOW. Instead, politicians offer patronizing cop-outs claiming that Iraq needs the United States to maintain stability, despite the fact that the problems in Iraq are caused by the presence of the United States.
Across the country, antiwar activists, ordinary citizens, and veterans will be holding events to commemorate this unfortunate anniversary. The protest on March 15 in Grand Rapids is just one of hundreds of events planned.
ACTIVATE is a Grand Rapids, Michigan based activist group dedicated to working toward social justice through community building, education, and direct action. We are a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
For more about ACTIVATE, visit our website at http://www.activategr.org
We sent the media release again one week before the event in case the outlets did not receive it or lost it. During this week, we also selected a person who would be the “go to” person for the media. Their job was to approach any media present at the march and explain that they are with the organizing group and that if they have questions or want to do an interview, to talk with them. We also drafted three talking points that we would use in order to avoid the ever irrelevant questions the media asks. These points were as follows:
1) ACTIVATE is calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops, private mercenary forces, advisors, and U.S. bases from the country of Iraq. This is the position supported by the majority of Iraqis. As the United States is engaged in the illegal occupation of Iraq, the future of Iraq should be determined by Iraqis. It is clear that the problems in Iraq, which are so often cited as an excuse for maintaining this occupation, are caused by the U.S. presence in the country.
2) The war in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of between 650,000 to 1.2 million Iraqis, depending on the numbers cited. Nearly 4,000 US soldiers have been killed and thousands wounded in the war. Finally, the war has displaced more than 4.2 million Iraqis.
3) ACTIVATE is protesting against the US Occupation of Iraq because it is draining valuable resources from our community. According to the National Priorities Project, since the US occupation of Iraq began, $262,647,000 has been spent on war from Grand Rapids. If that money stayed in this community it could provided 2,205 affordable housing units, 204,574 children with health care, or 28,135 scholarships for university students.
Three days before the march, we did follow-up calls to our media contacts. We asked if they had gotten the press release. If they had not, we sent another one directly to them. We also attempted to get them to commit to covering the event. During this time, we also put together packets for the members of the media. These packets contained: the press release, a copy of the flyer we were handing out, as well as two fact/source sheets (http://www.fpif.org/pdf/reports/0803iraqcow.pdf and http://www.nationalpriorities.org/auxiliary/maps_files/Budget2009/MI.pdf) to show that we were not just making numbers up.
During the event, our media spokesperson did several practice interviews before the press ever showed up. They also engaged the press explaining that they were the go to person for questions. They performed interviews and answered questions. It should be noted that the media has a history of asking questions that have little to no relevance to the action they are covering. The answers to these questions seem to be the ones that make it on to the nightly news. Some of the questions we got this time were: “Don’t you think the weather is nice?” “Do you feel many generations are represented here today?” and “Don’t you think protests like this lower troop morale and result in more deaths?” Most of these are loaded questions which come with a lot of assumptions which can and often does cloud our message. Usually, the media spokesperson simply reiterates our talking points, but this is often hard to do if the media doesn’t ask questions that those points pertain to, or refuse to air the points you are trying to make.
Despite our efforts, the media’s coverage was still condescending, misleading, and in a few cases, just wrong. Below is a look at the coverage each major media outlet gave the march.
WZZM 13:
First, it should be mentioned that this media outlet showed up AFTER the event had finished and was confused as to why no one was there. As a result, their shots were of the few remaining people at the park, making it appear as though no one showed up.
The story began by mentioning a new United Nations report that claims “the violence in the country has declined.” The story goes on to say that there has been increased violence in some parts of Iraq and that, “The report does not call the surge a success yet because it’s unclear whether the decrease in violence will last.” The story then mentions–with the line “despite the progress”–that an anti-war march was organized by ACTIVATE and cites a groups spokesperson at length who says, “The Iraqis don’t want us to be in Iraq and most Americans don’t want us to be in Iraq and the problems the United States government uses to justify our being there at this point are problems that we created, that are a result of our occupation of Iraq.” WZZM 13 also mentions that two arrests were made.
Grand Rapids Press:
They ran a story on the front page of the region section entitled “2 arrested at downtown Grand Rapids war protest,” which clearly puts the focus on those arrested and not the intent of the march. None of the march organizers are cited in the story, although it does say that protesters “bemoaned what they estimated were 4,000 Americans and 1.2 million Iraqis killed since the war began.” These numbers were not estimates but based on data from sources such as Iraq Coalition Casualty Count and the group Just Foreign Policy. There was a Grand Valley State University (GVSU) student and a woman identified as a baby boomer there in opposition to the war who were cited, as well as Denny Gillem, who was with a “dozen veterans and supporters of George Bush.” It is interesting to note that this person was given more print space than any of the ACTIVATE organizers. Even though the headline focused on the two arrests that were made, the article only devoted one sentence to the arrests.
WXMI 17:
WXMI 17 ran a 2 minute and 34 second story, the longest of all the local TV stations. This story began by mentioning that two people were arrested during the anti-war march and then says, “It is still a heated issue for those on both sides of the argument.” By framing the story this way, it leaves TV viewers with the impression that there were two equally opposing viewpoints. Just because a dozen people decided to show up to stand in opposition to the 400 anti-war marchers doesn’t mean that they deserve equal air-time. However, WXMI 17 does give a pro-war person nearly equal airtime to the ACTIVATE spokesperson. Not only does the pro-war person get equal airtime, the reporter didn’t question any of the claims he makes. The reporter does question a claim that ACTIVATE makes about most Americans wanting the US out of Iraq, by citing a new Wall Street Journal Poll. However, Denny Gillem can say, “I am here to make sure that these protesters don’t deface our war monuments,” even though there is no evidence to suggest that ACTIVATE has ever defaced war monuments. The pro-war person also says of the protest, “It discourages our troops, it lowers to moral of our troops in Iraq, who do know they are here and my years in combat, low morale in troops means more troops casualties.” Again, the reporter doesn’t verify his claims.
WXMI edited the interview of our spokesperson showing them only asking for the removal of all troops, instead of our actual claim, which is all troops, mercenaries, advisors, and U.S. bases. They also only cited the deaths of American soldiers. Both of these changes severely altered the message we were attempting to convey. This station also claimed that we met at a different park in the city, and mentioned a candle light vigil planned for later this week, but got the day it is going to happen on wrong. The story ends by mentioning that ACTIVATE last year went to the home of Congressman Vern Ehlers and that two people were arrested at this year’s march.
THE MEDIA FAILS AGAIN
Clearly, the media failed to communicate the message we were trying to get across through our talking points, press release, and press packets. We have seen this happen year after year with our events. No matter how much work we put into trying to prevent it, the media is going to frame our actions how they want. Usually, this ends up making us look inarticulate and naive.
This failure of the media to properly report on us has not hindered our chapter in Grand Rapids. Instead of picking actions with the goal of getting good media coverage, our actions have for the most part had very clear, tangible targets. As a result, we are able to achieve our goals without relying on the media. For example, last year we lead a march of hundreds of people to the doorstep of our local congressperson’s house and demanded that he stop voting to fund the war. The media coverage was sensationalized accounts of the arrests that happened, with little to no mention of what we did or our message. However, because our target was the congressperson and our goal was to influence them, this poor media coverage did not have a negative effect on our goal. Moreover, people were not alienated by the action. In fact, following this, we had some of the largest meetings our group has ever had. We publicized our action through our own means as well. Utilizing a local independent media website, our own website, and YouTube videos, we reached a greater number of people interested in what we are doing than watch the nightly news.
IN CONCLUSION
The point of this is to show that having actions in which the primary goal is to achieve good media and avoid alienating those who watch the news are bound to fail. Instead, we must pick strategic targets that we have leverage over and take the actions that maximize that leverage. Whether these actions are going to be “media friendly” may be a concern in some cases, but it should be secondary to achieving our goals. This is how change occurs, not though good sound bites on the news, but rather by maximizing our influence and taking actions that can have real outcomes.
POST SCRIPT
Lest you think that we merely critique the media from afar, last year, members of our group met with a local media outlet to discuss how they have reported on the both the Iraq War and antiwar activity generally. We had a half hour conversation with an editor at our local newspaper. In preparing for the meeting, we totaled the number of stories they ran on Iraq, on protests, and tracked who was quoted and who was sourced. Not surprisingly, they relied overwhelmingly on US government sources and downplayed antiwar protests. We had a cordial meeting and there was good dialog, but it was all for naught. It never resulted in better coverage, and indeed when we had the aforementioned march to our congressperson’s house, the coverage was as sensationalized as ever.