Money Talks

Commercial media discover the WTO

On Thursday, December 2, the top story of the CBS Evening News opened with the Broadway neighborhood in Seattle. Police in riot gear blocked the street, set off sonic bombs, and shot tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets into the crowd. In a shot seen 'round the world, one cop kicked a man in the groin and sprayed him in the face with something as the man was walking away. Residents stood pleading with the police to leave, and then ran from unannounced salvos of chemicals. One woman interviewed said, "I'm sick of seeing them gas the kids. Let them gas the old women. Let them gas me. Gas the babies."

The report then went into some of the problems with the WTO, explaining how people had reason to resist the secret organization, whose three-member tribunal of unelected officials could overrule local laws protecting the environment and workers' rights if those laws restricted trade. The report concluded, "The protests in Seattle have cast a brilliant light on the World Trade Organization; and now, the whole world IS watching."

Although this unusual vindication doesn't make up for months of outright neglect or insultingly oversimplified coverage, the commercial news media have provided much good coverage of the WTO in the last few weeks. One of the most subversive articles appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer business section. A veritable call to action, the piece inadvertently gave tips to those who would infiltrate the conference. First, you could volunteer to be an aide to a delegate. Then, you would be coached on what to say if the delegate asked about the rich and poor in America (e.g. Why are those people sleeping in the street?).

Once the conference began, local TV reporters wandered through the gas, apparently addled by the terror of having to fight dead air in live, real time, as they made excuses for the police and lamented the loss of Christmas shoppers to the downtown retail core. Once it became obvious that a press pass was about as effective as a "Gas me, Pig" sign in protecting reporters from attack -- and once news from elsewhere poured in with less than civil appraisals of the events in Seattle -- local reports lost some of their booster gloss. KIRO and KING provided hours of fascinating coverage. There was, however, a tendency for some hicks to editorialize about the shame the city must feel to be overrun by what many casually referred to as "the rabble" or "anarchists." Demonstrators as well as pundits complained about the violence because it diverted attention from the peaceful protests and the issues of the WTO, but violence -- by the police, by a few demonstrators, and by a handful of others who broke windows and looted -- drove the story to the forefront of news coverage. The CBS Evening News report of Dec. 2 featured a KIRO TV reporter just after he had been gassed.

A December 16 Seattle Times postmortem of the city's law enforcement -- or law repudiation, for those inclined to think in terms of First Amendment rights -- gave a fascinating account of the pressures the feds put on Mayor Paul Schell. Schell may have been naive in believing the city could play host to the WTO and to all of the demonstrators and he could sound peevish when challenged to defend his strategy, but he seems like a sympathetic character when you read about the Secretary of State screaming into the telephone from her room while protesters pounded the walls of her hotel.

Sincere Flattery
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Seattle P-I ought to feel honored. On the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 23, P-I boxes from Lynnwood to Renton sported a dead-on four-page parody version of the paper, individually wrapped around standard copies. Fortunately for the real P-I, whose Christmas shopping lead story might have pleased advertisers but was lousy for selling newspapers, the wrap-around Seattle Post-Intelligence had a headline that rocked: "Boeing to move overseas." Some of the other stories were "Monsanto patents food chain" and "Clinton pledges help for the poorest nations" in this savvy round-up of world trade commentary. Subtitled the "Voice of the People," the parody mixed straight stories on the WTO, farce, wishful thinking, and a list of WTO protest events. With correspondents like Joe Hill, Emma Goldman, and Dorothy Day, departments like Turtles, Global Warming, and Human Rights, and cover teasers like "Mumia Freed," the replacement P-I offered a pre-emptive view of the WTO conference and an enlightened vision of the ways the world does business.

No group has come forward to claim credit for the publishing and distribution of the parody. Far from flattered, the real P-I allegedly threatened legal action. And the real Boeing issued a press release to deny that it was moving to Indonesia.