Occupy Wall Street & the Media

As stated in Notes on the State of America, “the media has little to do with providing useful and relevant information on important issues of the day so that Americans themselves can come to well informed decisions” (173). It is expected that corporate media would paint such a negative picture of Occupy Wall Street because the enemies of OWS are corporations. I find it interesting the way corporate mass media portrays the Occupy Wall Street movement. An article in the New York Post states that the NYPD has sent “elite Manhattan homicide detectives and a deputy chief to the raucous Occupy Wall Street protest in response to a rash of sex attacks, thefts and vandalism – including graffiti scrawled on the nearby 9/11 Memorial.” The previous quote is loaded with words that create a negative mental picture of OWS and the protestors. Keywords  and phrases include “racous,” “rash of sex attacks,” “thefts and vandalism,” “elite homicide detectives,” and “graffiti scrawled.” This article is clearly biased and wants its readers to believe that OWS is a bad movement. The article goes on to describe the movement and the people involved with it and paints them in a very negative light. And just to be clear, the graffiti that was “scrawled” on the memorial was apparently “a heart etched near a name” and “a drawing of a skull.” Furthermore, the NYPD has detectives investigating this so-called “vandalism.” I have a few issues to bring up about this situation. The first is that they have even called an etched heart near a name vandalism. This is clearly not a malicious act. Next, the NYPD is blaming this very slight problem on Occupy protesters. Finally, the NYPD has actually assigned detectives to investigate this case. I find it very interesting how the media and the NYPD find ways to deter from the actual societal problems that we are dealing with today. For instance, instead of writing a constructive article about Occupy Wall Street and how it relates to our society, it focuses people’s attention on very small, insignificant problems. This is only one of the many instances of how the media distracts us from what is really going on in our world.

What I find even more interesting about this article is that it does not even take into consideration what the movement is about and what it promotes. Any informed individual would be able to tell you that Occupy Wall Street is a famously peaceful protest. This is not to deny that there has been sexual harassment, theft or vandalism occurring at OWS. However, these instances are few and far between and do not encompass what this movement is really about.