Bob Kolasky is the managing editor of IntellectualCapital.com. His e-mail address is bob@voxcap.com

Reaction to media coverage of the protests last week in Seattle was a dominant strain of debate among the discussion by IC readers following the posting of a couple of my daily columns from Seattle last week: "What Price Victory?" and "Back to Work." Five days since my return from last week's "City of Brotherly Hate," and more than a week after the protests turned violent, I thought it worth reflecting on that very subject -- and offering my perspective as someone who was there.

A bad rap?

Jack H. is a constant critic of the coverage -- and, it is worth noting, he makes those criticisms as a Seattleite:

Interesting how 100 or so anarchists (interesting article in the N[ew] Y[ork] Times on that) being destructive morons and some stupid teenagers trying to make trouble is taken up by the media as some kind of indictment of the 30,000-35,000 peaceful protesters. Seems like the media is almost completely united in trying to ignore the peaceful protests on Monday and early Tuesday.

Unknown Origin echoes this complaint.

The real tragedy of this is that people seem to have been correctly "programmed" by Big Media and Big Business to focus on the actions of the "anarchists." The truth is that the focus on what they did effectively distracts people from what is important. Ultimately, what the "anarchists" (Nice label, by the way) and looters [did] is of so little import and so unimportant that I find it tragic that even people here seem effectively distracted.

In one sense, as somebody who spent all of Tuesday amidst the chaos, I think they have a point. It is sad if what is remembered from an impressive show of civil citizen resistance is the action of the so-called anarchists. And I don't think that their actions should be in any way an "indictment" on the peaceful protest.

But what I will note in the media's defense is that, at least in the coverage in the day or so after Tuesday (the main day of protest), the destruction deserved to be a major part of the story. On the streets that day, the breaking of store windows and carnage caused by the 50 or so "anarchists" was perhaps the most frightening moment of the day, as it was random violence that led to near-mob fights between those who came in peace and those who did not.

You cannot blame the media for covering that violence; it happened. But the media is culpable if, as some hinted at the boards, they ignored the rest of the story in favor of covering the anarchy. To that end, I agree with alanH.

Most of the media reports I've seen take pains to point out that most of the protestors were not violent. I don't think you can expect them to ignore the out-of-control aspects of last week and the fact that the city had to shut down such a large area.

Corporate bias

That being said, the big story out of the protests is the sheer size and energy of them -- and I think that there is more than a kernel of truth to what Jack H. says:

The media bias has been stunning. I don't believe for a second it's "liberal" or "conservative" bias. For lack of a better word, it's "corporatist." It has deliberately distorted what happened into a story of evil, violent Luddite protesters vs. noble, admirable business and trade representatives.

I don't know if bias is the right word -- but it is close enough. Much of the media did miss what was going to happen in Seattle before it happened, and because of that, they had to hustle to catch up and some undoubtedly missed the nuance of the protests. Big media is trained to look certain places for stories, and those places really do not include so-called "radical" sites where those who organized the protests hang out.

I am not the first to say it, but journalists -- both reporters and editors -- do hang out with people like themselves, and for white-collar, middle-aged America, opposition to the WTO is not really an issue. What happened in Seattle is that the opposition bubbled over publicly -- and in a way that was not pretty. Corporate media did not quite know what to make out of it (nor for that matter do I, as a member of the "non-corporate media"), but trying to pigeonhole it as a bunch of extremists is a mistake.

Missing the point

I don't agree with CA, when he/she writes:

It's been estimated that there were 400,000 protesters there, and corporate America, of which AOL and Disney are a part, is intent on suppressing coverage of this as they try to shove what's left of our "democracy."

But I do agree that AOL and Nightline should have been all over the coverage. There is no excuse to do what Wordy suggests the media did:

The mainstream media did not present the WTO issues in a very delineated way. It was very general fuzzy and depended on the journalistic strength and the depth of understanding of globalization. It is a haphazard and complex process [that], hitherto, has eluded most of the journalistic community.

There has to be a better way

It is a tired complaint, but yet it is one that needs to be said over and over again. (One of the best at talking about it is Jay Rosen, the author of What Are Journalists For?.) The media errs by trying to oversimplify stories -- like many IC readers criticized TV and press for doing last week in Seattle. More importantly it errs by not covering what matters to the people.

Where were the "Crossfires" and "Hardballs" and Time magazines in the months leading up to the WTO meeting. Americans would be better served seeing the pundits debating George W. Bush and Al Gore and Bill Bradley's position on globalization rather than endless stories about the color of suits they wear.

I hope that is one of the lessons of Seattle.