BY
EMMA CLANCY
SYDNEY The copious numbers of corporate journalists present at the April 2 student anti-war rally may have spent four to five hours dashing from one end of Town Hall to another in search of a violent spectacle, but, unlike the students, they left the peaceful protest disappointed and frustrated.
The week between the March 26 student strike, attended by around 10,000 exuberant anti-war protesters, and the April 2 strike was full of media hysteria. Television news and so-called current affairs programs, radio talk-back, tabloid and broadsheet newspapers had worked themselves into a frenzy of condemnation of young anti-war activists.
Books Not Bombs was accused of violence, of insulting Australias history, of being too radical, of being racist, of splitting the anti-war movement, everything, in fact, short of eating babies for breakfast, and it was only a matter of time before that one came up.
Radio talk-back hosts on 2UE and 2GB gave out the telephone number and an address, which was wrong, for the central Sydney Resistance Centre, in which Books Not Bombs has been meeting. Activists in the centre have subsequently had to field calls, over-the-top abusive as well as passionately supportive, almost continuously for a week. Key Books Not Bombs leaders Kylie Moon and Simon Butler have been receiving death threats as a result.
A lengthy attack on Books Not Bombs, and the socialist youth organisation Resistance, was printed in the April 2 Sydney Morning Herald. Written by Tim Wallace, who described himself as a freelance journalist, it attacked protest organisers and told young people that an independent mind does not flourish by subjugating itself to the party line. Wallace does not mention, however, that he himself is identified with a political party. He is a regular contributor to News Weekly, the fortnightly publication of the rabidly right-wing and racist National Civic Council.
Callers whipped into a frenzy by the shock-jocks' programs called for the student protesters to be locked in cages, to be beaten and even, in one case, to be executed. The protesters were editorialised against in almost every Sydney newspaper. It seemed the right-wing media simply couldnt get enough of the youth-bashing.
But strangely, after the success of the April 2 protest, some of this media simply disappeared. Moon explained to Green Left Weekly that a few hours after the rally, Channel Nine's current affairs program 60 Minutes pulled out of doing a profile on Books Not Bombs, which was planned to air on April 6.
After following students around for days, flying someone out to do film interviews and prepare for the rally, the program backed out at the last minute because of the 'lack of violence. Well, we're sorry to disappoint them, but we'd planned to hold a peaceful anti-war protest, and that's what we did, Moon commented.
Another aborted expose was carried out by Sydneys highest-circulating newspaper, the Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph. The Tele sent a reporter into the Resistance Centre, pretending to be an anti-war activist, who spent two days helping to prepare for the protest and attended an organising meeting the night before.
From all that hard work, the intrepid infiltrator came up with nothing more damning than that Books Not Bombs members were committed, organised and some were revolutionary socialists. The final piece warranted around 300-400 words.
As well as running around the protest looking for "violence", the media interviewed a lot of protesters, particularly Middle Eastern students. Young Arab men and boys were asked, Are you here for a fight?. When one young man told a Channel 7 reporter that he was there to protest the war on Iraq, same as last week, and that the police were the ones who started violence, the reporter replied by saying, what police? I don't see any police.
It explains a lot about Channel 7's coverage of the March 26 student strike that they employ reporters unable to see the roughly 800 police officers that were ringing the protest at the time.
Unsurprisingly, most of the protesters distrusted, and many were hostile to, the corporate journalists at the rally. (GLW reporters, and other independent journalists, however, were warmly welcomed by most.)
Many young people who were at the March 26 rally and were attacked by police, only to see themselves portrayed as violent thugs and extremists on the evening news, were unwilling to give interviews and told the journalists what they thought of the quality of their reporting.
Some journalists were reduced to trying to start fights themselves: even assistant police commissioner Dick Adams was forced to describe the media behaviour as unhelpful in his post-rally press conference. Some camera operators were spotted shoving protesters in order to film their reactions.
Still unable to get images of fighting, arrests and injuries, many media reported the peacefulness of the protest as a victory for police. They completely ignored the broad community support students had received, and the parents, teachers, lawyers and older anti-war activists helping restrain police aggression by acting as peace monitors, legal observers and parents for peace. Maybe Channel 7 just didn't see them.
The student anti-war protests have been a learning experience for many young people, particularly as the medias lies about the war in Iraq have been mirrored by lies about young anti-war protesters. At the March 26 rally, high school students had brought along a banner saying Tune in to your propaganda, with the logos of Channel 7, 9, and 10 and a picture of media baron Rupert Murdoch underneath it.
Its a good sign. See, as one protester told Green Left Weekly on April 2, we may be young, but were not the stupid ones. Were the ones who will keep fighting for a peaceful, just, liveable world. And none of their propaganda is going to change that.
[Emma Clancy is a member of Books Not Bombs and the socialist youth organisation Resistance. Visit <http://www.booksnotbombs.org.au>.]
From Green Left Weekly, April 9, 2003.
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