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CounterPunch
November
12, 2002
A Half Million
in Florence
Where Was the US Press?
by MARIA TOMCHICK
The atmosphere was "like a carnival,"
an Associated Press reporter wrote, "with food stands, exhibits,
and street theater along with the discussion of free trade and
war."
Over half a million people turned out
in the streets of Florence, Italy to protest globalization and
the impending war between the U.S. and Iraq. The massive, peaceful
street demonstration on November 9th was an unexpected climax
to the four-day European Social Forum, sister to the World Social
Forum held earlier this year in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Press from
all over Europe and the world gathered to cover the event ...
but the U.S. press fumbled the ball.
Most U.S. newspapers print their stories
from the two major wire services, Reuters and Associated Press.
Both services ran stories on the demonstration and, not only
did they accurately describe the celebratory mood of the marchers
and the diversity of the crowd, they also accurately reported
the two-prong nature of the protesters' message.
Alessandra Rizzo of the Associated Press
reported: "Protesters said they were motivated by opposition
to a war in Iraq and the influence of multinational corporations,
which they see as harmful to the environment and the poor."
Reuters reporter Luke Baker described the demonstrators: "As
well as university-age students, older political activists and
thousands of trades unionists, Saturday's throng also included
Italian World War II partisans and a U.S. Vietnam war veteran
who marched in the first row of the crowd."
Baker also interviewed several citizens
of Florence, many of whom turned out to watch or join the demonstration.
One expressed scorn for the Florentines who closed their shops
and fled the city, while another expressed pride that her city
was hosting such an event. Baker pointed out: "the city's
famed museums remained open and offered free entry to the few
tourists around."
As to the numbers of people on the street,
Baker reported: "Authorities estimated that some 450,000
protesters flooded Florence's streets ... But by dusk, the crowd
had swelled to over half a million, many of them arriving on
specially chartered trains and buses. Organizers estimated the
gathering at around one million, making it one of Italy's biggest
ever anti-war rallies." AP reporter Rizzo gave similar figures.
In stark contrast to the two wire service
accounts, the articles posted by the two U.S. newspapers of record,
the New York Times and the Washington Post, took a darker tone.
The New York Times article, written by
Frank Bruni, was the more comprehensive of the two. Yet Bruni
did his best to downplay the festive atmosphere of the march.
His focus from the very first paragraph was on "tense Italian
government officials" thrown into a "jittery state
of alert" and the 5,000 police ostensibly deployed to protect
Florence's architectural and sculptural treasures. Bruni, instead
of communicating the reasons for the protest, ridicules them.
Of one demonstrator, he says: "she used eyeliner to paint
Y-like shapes on the brows of friends. They worried aloud that
the results looked more like Mercedes symbols than peace signs."
He also repeats the favorite assertion
of right-wing, pro-business commentators in the U.S.--that anti-globalization
protesters are unfocused dimwits, who just want to protest for
the sake of complaining: "Amadeo Rossi, 48, of Turin, Italy,
said he was demonstrating 'against the war in Iraq, the mistreatment
of immigrants and the abuses of the Italian government--all of
the problems in the world.'"
The Washington Post article, written
by Daniel Williams, was even worse. Williams began his article
with the same type of ridicule Bruni used: "A crowd of about
400,000 protesters from across Europe marched here today against
a presumptive war on Iraq and plenty of other things as well--globalization,
cultivation of genetically modified foods, commercial control
of the Internet, copyright laws, Israel's policies toward the
Palestinians and liberalization of employee layoff rules."
While the protesters were able to connect the dots, Williams
was not.
While the wire service reporters interviewed
and quoted numerous people, Williams quoted only two, one a "French
leftist" and the other a student, who said: "All the
United States wants is oil to fuel their big cars."
While Williams picked an anti-American
quote, both he and Bruni ignored the main reason why so many
people were in the street on that day: namely, to protest the
foreign policy of one man, George W. Bush. The wire service reporters
emphasized that the UN vote on Nov. 8th to pass Bush's resolution
against Iraq had boosted the number of people protesting in Florence.
Baker (Reuters) reported: "Some placards depicted President
Bush as Hitler and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as
Mussolini." The two U.S. reporters, however, made little
mention of criticism against Bush.
Instead, Williams and Bruni devoted a
lot of space to describing the reaction of a few prominent Italians
to the forum and demonstration, reminding us that film director
Franco Zeffirelli and journalist Oriana Fallaci had scorned the
demonstrators. They forgot to mention, however, that Nobel prize-winning
Italian playwright Dario Fo had welcomed the protesters with
open arms and actively participated in the forum.
We could put the dismal performance of
the U.S. reporters down to defensiveness; however, the British
press was also present on that day. The BBC not only ran a very
good article on the forum and demonstration, but they also posted
a collection of photos from the Florence protest. One of the
photos was captioned: "Enemy number one for most of the
demonstrators was US President George W Bush." Nor did they
spare Tony Blair: "...the message behind the rally was a
serious one: 'Take your war and go to hell,' one banner read.
'Bush, Blair and Berlusconi--assassins' said another."
The BBC was not alone. The U.K. Independent
also had a reporter in Florence, while The Guardian of London
reprinted an edited version of Luke Baker's Reuters article.
There's no excuse for the U.S. press
to have done such a terrible job reporting on the Florence demonstration.
But, as usual, the whole world was watching--except for us.
Maria Tomchick
writes a bi-weekly column for Eat
the State! She can be reached at: tomchick@drizzle.com
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November 10,
2002
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