To say that the Occupy movement is polarizing would be a massive understatement.
Ask people on the street about it and you’ll get plenty of extreme opinions. Some will champion it as a movement on par with the civil rights activity of the 60s. Others will lambast it as dissent of the lazy and uninformed.
The latter belief is particularly noteworthy today. In general, broad social movements tend to get the sympathy of the American public. But the Boston Globe published a poll recently that shows that only 29 percent of Americans support the Occupy movement.
Why? The biggest issue seems to be whether or not people can relate. Agreeing that the nation’s economy and government are broken is one thing; buying into the unspecific, angry, often hippie-esque spirit of Occupy is another thing altogether.
Part of this, of course, has to do with how the movement has been portrayed. Mainstream media outlets have ostensibly (hopefully?) tried their best to portray the movement in an objective light. The problem? It’s just too easy to fail at this goal.
It’s easy for disdainful anchors to make slights about the movement. It’s easy to explain the movement in an unflattering light. And, of course, there is the issue of soundbites (i.e. on-air interviews).
How does one, as a reporter, discern between people who will give clear, informed answers and those who have no idea what the hell’s going on? Answer: you can’t. And so we end up with what I’ve dubbed the ineloquent-but-mad Occupy protester: that person who, when they’re asked why they are protesting, answers with bullshit about the rich and the heroism of the underdog.
Ineloquent-but-mad Occupy protesters are part of the reality that is the Occupy movement, sure. But local news outlets, pressured by the stresses of live broadcasts, don’t have a vetting process when it comes to talking to strangers. This brings to light a couple of quibbles: does the inability to find legitimate, diverse beliefs misrepresent the movement to an impressionable American public? And why not look to true leaders - like noted professor and activist Cornel West, who was present at Occupy Wall Street - to properly contextualize what’s going on?
Conservatives frequently complain that mainstream news has a hard, liberal slant. While this can be debated all night (and day) long, one thing that everyone can probably agree on is that the news is undoubtedly very prone to inadvertent bias. News outlets have failed to show all angles of the Occupy movement, and for that, the movement - and the public - has been slighted.
Ask people on the street about it and you’ll get plenty of extreme opinions. Some will champion it as a movement on par with the civil rights activity of the 60s. Others will lambast it as dissent of the lazy and uninformed.
The latter belief is particularly noteworthy today. In general, broad social movements tend to get the sympathy of the American public. But the Boston Globe published a poll recently that shows that only 29 percent of Americans support the Occupy movement.
Why? The biggest issue seems to be whether or not people can relate. Agreeing that the nation’s economy and government are broken is one thing; buying into the unspecific, angry, often hippie-esque spirit of Occupy is another thing altogether.
Part of this, of course, has to do with how the movement has been portrayed. Mainstream media outlets have ostensibly (hopefully?) tried their best to portray the movement in an objective light. The problem? It’s just too easy to fail at this goal.
It’s easy for disdainful anchors to make slights about the movement. It’s easy to explain the movement in an unflattering light. And, of course, there is the issue of soundbites (i.e. on-air interviews).
How does one, as a reporter, discern between people who will give clear, informed answers and those who have no idea what the hell’s going on? Answer: you can’t. And so we end up with what I’ve dubbed the ineloquent-but-mad Occupy protester: that person who, when they’re asked why they are protesting, answers with bullshit about the rich and the heroism of the underdog.
Ineloquent-but-mad Occupy protesters are part of the reality that is the Occupy movement, sure. But local news outlets, pressured by the stresses of live broadcasts, don’t have a vetting process when it comes to talking to strangers. This brings to light a couple of quibbles: does the inability to find legitimate, diverse beliefs misrepresent the movement to an impressionable American public? And why not look to true leaders - like noted professor and activist Cornel West, who was present at Occupy Wall Street - to properly contextualize what’s going on?
Conservatives frequently complain that mainstream news has a hard, liberal slant. While this can be debated all night (and day) long, one thing that everyone can probably agree on is that the news is undoubtedly very prone to inadvertent bias. News outlets have failed to show all angles of the Occupy movement, and for that, the movement - and the public - has been slighted.
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