Dayhoff Soundtrack: TimesWatch Tracker: Times Almost Ignores Anti-Cop Violence at Occupy Oakland

Friday, October 28, 2011

TimesWatch Tracker: Times Almost Ignores Anti-Cop Violence at Occupy Oakland

More Melodramatic Coverage from Robertson of Alabama's Crackdown on Illegals
That's one way of putting it. Campbell Robertson reports "The champions of Alabama's far-reaching immigration law have said that it is intended to drive illegal immigrants from the state by making every aspect of their life difficult."

Laughs Ahoy for NYT's OWS-Comedy Coverage: Sometimes 'You Need a Little Knife in the Gut'
Corey Kilgannon relays some "jokes" from an Occupy Wall Street comedy night. Imagine the Times' reaction if it had been a Tea Party gathering. "'You need a little knife in the gut once in a while,' joked the comedian Danny Vitale, during a comedy night held for the protesters at the Yippie Museum Café on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village on Wednesday night. Mr. Vitale said that even the Peace Movement of the 1960s had a need for some muscle, citing the claim that the Hell's Angels were used as a security force at the 1969 Altamont Speedway Free Festival."

Times Almost Ignores Anti-Cop Violence at Occupy Oakland
The Times virtually ignores anti-cop violence at the Occupy Oakland encampment, in favor of a sympathetic story on a veteran injured at the protest: "For supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose diffuse anger has been a defining and sometimes distracting characteristic, the wounding of an Iraq war veteran here has provided a powerful central rallying point."

More Melodramatic Coverage from Robertson of Alabama's Crackdown on Illegals

Campbell Robertson offered up more melodramatic coverage of Alabama’s tough new immigration enforcement in his Friday New York Times story “ Critics See ‘Chilling Effect’ in Alabama Immigration Law.”

Robertson’s October 4 report led off with an image that could have come from an M. Night Shyamalan movie: “The vanishing began Wednesday night, the most frightened families packing up their cars as soon as they heard the news.”

The opening line to Friday’s story sounds a lot like Robertson putting words in an illegal immigration opponent’s mouth (the Times likes to cartoonishly characterize pro-enforcement sources as having their main goal in life merely to make life hard for illegal immigrants).

The champions of Alabama’s far-reaching immigration law have said that it is intended to drive illegal immigrants from the state by making every aspect of their life difficult. But they have taken a very different tone when it comes to the part of the law concerning schools.

“No child will be denied an education based on unlawful status,” the state attorney general, Luther Strange, argued in a court filing.

The man who wrote the schools provision says the same thing, that it is not meant as a deterrent -- at least not yet. It is, however, a first step in a larger and long-considered strategy to topple a 29-year-old Supreme Court ruling that all children in the United States, regardless of their immigration status, are guaranteed a public education.

The provision, which is known as Section 28, requires primary and secondary schools to record the immigration status of incoming students and their parents and pass that data on to the state.

Critics say it is a simple end in itself, an attempt to circumvent settled law and to scare immigrants away from school now, not at some point in the future. Weeks of erratic school attendance figures and a spike in withdrawals show that this has worked, they argue. And indeed, a federal appeals court on Oct. 14 blocked the provision pending an appeal by the Justice Department, though the court did not rule on the merits.

Deeper into the article, Robertson let on that perhaps those “disappearances” perhaps aren’t as profound as previously assumed by the law's opponents, and Robertson himself.

Whether the critics are correct in arguing that the law has created a “chilling effect,” inducing families to pull their children out of school, is harder to measure than it may seem.

While daily absences by Hispanic students ranged as high as 5,143, or 15 percent of the Hispanic student population, they had dropped to 1,230 the day before the provision was blocked, said a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education (on a normal day, she said, around 1,000 absences can be expected). Statewide data has not been compiled as to how many students have fully withdrawn, though interviews in several districts suggest that number could be in the hundreds.

Laughs Ahoy for NYT's OWS-Comedy Coverage: Sometimes 'You Need a Little Knife in the Gut'

Attempting to humanize the Occupy Wall Street protesters, New York Times Metro reporter Corey Kilgannon laughed off comedic threats of violence in Friday’s Metro section story on a show hosted by comedian/activist Randy Credico for Occupy Wall Street protesters in Greenwich Village this week, “ Protesters’ Night Out: Jokes, Laughs, and an Anthem on Autoharp.”

Read the excerpt, especially in the wake of the anti-cop violence at Occupy Oakland, then think of how the Times conjured up imaginary threats of violence from much less, like a graphic from Sarah Palin’s political action committee in 2010 showing cross hairs over the districts of some Democrats after the shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.

One comedian derided the group of Occupy Wall Street protesters in the front row as Ivy League nerds. Another ridiculed the “mic-check” format of public speaking favored by protesters since they have been prohibited from using bullhorns. Even their nonviolent protest methods came under fire.

“You need a little knife in the gut once in a while,” joked the comedian Danny Vitale, during a comedy night held for the protesters at the Yippie Museum Café on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village on Wednesday night.

Mr. Vitale said that even the Peace Movement of the 1960s had a need for some muscle, citing the claim that the Hell’s Angels were used as a security force at the 1969 Altamont Speedway Free Festival.

“There have always been some guys on the left who have to be a little strong-arm,” he said.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters based in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan have been nothing if not vocal -- in chants and signs and Twitter posts -- in expressing their discontent with the disparity of wealth in America. But on Wednesday night, it was time to chant down the protesters, at a session that was a mix of a roast and a celebration of the downtown protest.

Times Almost Ignores Anti-Cop Violence at Occupy Oakland

The thrust of the New York Times’ coverage of the violence in Oakland begs the question: When even the left-wing magazine Mother Jones reports of police in Oakland being assaulted with eggs, glass, and vinegar, what is the “objective” Times excuse for virtually ignoring the protester violence?

Yet Jesse McKinley and Malia Wollan’s report from the “Occupy Oakland” protests Friday focused not on the anti-cop violence, but on a military veteran hit in the head by a projectile and the outpouring of sympathy from all the suddenly staunch pro-military people at the Oakland encampment: “ Outrage Over Veteran Injured at ‘Occupy’ Protest.”

For supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose diffuse anger has been a defining and sometimes distracting characteristic, the wounding of an Iraq war veteran here has provided a powerful central rallying point.

The veteran, Scott Olsen, 24, was critically injured on Tuesday night when he was hit in the head with a projectile thrown or shot by law enforcement officers combating protesters trying to re-enter a downtown plaza that had been cleared of an encampment earlier in the day. Mr. Olsen, who served two tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine, suffered a fractured skull.

And while Mr. Olsen’s condition has since improved, his injury -- and the oddity of a Marine who faced enemy fire only to be attacked at home -- has prompted an outpouring of sympathy, as well as calls for solidarity among the scores of Occupy encampments around the nation. On Thursday night, camps in several major cities -- including New York, Chicago and Philadelphia -- were expected to participate in a vigil for Mr. Olsen, according to Iraq Veterans Against the War, of which he is a member.

In sharp contrast, James West of Mother Jones concluded his Wednesday dispatch:

As the protesters filtered away, I spoke with a group of tired cops covered in blue and orange paint – and that wasn't all, said one sergeant who wouldn't give his name. He said they'd also been pelted with glass and vinegar, and one officer claimed to have tasted urine in the mix. So how did tonight compare with others he's seen? He laughed and said, "Well, it's not quite a homicide."

Thursday’s National section story from Oakland by Jesse McKinley and Abby Goodnough, “ Some Cities Begin Cracking Down on ‘Occupy’ Protests,” relegated a vague claim of anti-police violence by protesters to paragraph 18. (The paper did reveal some unflattering details on the protests, such as a spray-painted message that read "Kill Pigs.")

In Oakland, where one protester -- Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran -- was in critical condition at a local hospital after being struck in the head with a projectile during the chaotic street battle on Tuesday, city officials defended their actions, saying the police used tear gas after being pelted with rocks. The police are investigating what happened to Mr. Olsen.