Summit of the Americas: Capitalist media exposes itself in public The two most positive aspects of the April Quebec City protest were the self-exposure of the state and the media. In the case of the media, it will serve to review the major media stories favoring the politicians from April 20 to the 22nd. CNN bought the police version of events. From the very beginning of its main web page article, CNN took sides with the police: "Leaders from 34 nations in the Western Hemisphere will sign a final accord and begin heading home Sunday, after a three-day Summit of the Americas marred by violent protests from anti-globalization demonstrators that left more than 90 people injured."(1) The word "marred" is editorialization from the first sentence. First of all, since CNN's entire web page (www.cnn.com) reportage as of Sunday April 22nd when the Summit of the Americas was ending did not quote any protesters who were militant direct action-oriented or otherwise, the statement that protests "marr" the Summit does not give the protesters a chance to say if it was police violence or really protester violence that was the problem. Only at the very end of the article does it mention the separate legal demonstration in one sentence, and even then it was only to accept the police estimate that there were 30,000 protesters. There are no quotes from any of those protesters in the main article. All quotes in the CNN article are either directly or indirectly mentioning police or bourgeois politicians negotiating the trade treaties. In the follow-up article titled "John King: Protests at the Summit of the Americas,"(2) one would think there would be some coverage of protesters. In actual fact, it is an interview with the police. No quotes either direct or indirect come from protesters in that article. A third follow-up article from CNN shows CNN's Havana correspondent and we presume the real reason for the article was to show someone saying, once again that the Summit of the Americas was about: "a treaty among the 34 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean--every country in the region, except Cuba, which has been excluded." She also said again, as in the interview with the police posing as an article on the protest that there were 6,000 "riot" police on hand, the only point of which is to paint the demonstrators as rioters without having to investigate what they say. Hence, as of the Sunday morning April 22nd, when the public should be able to rap up its understanding of this event, the CNN reporting on its web page did not include a single bit of coverage from protesters, either militant or more moderate. In contrast, MIM Notes always provides bourgeois sources for its articles, quotes bourgeois leaders and also provides the proletarian side of events. MIM has nothing to fear from the truth, because the world's masses of people have a self- interest in supporting the truth of Maoism. As for USA Today, as of April 22nd with six recent articles, it had even more written coverage of the Free-Trade Area of the Americas agreement (FTAA) than CNN. It's article of April 21 titled, "Police fire water cannons at summit protesters" had only one single direct or indirect quote from any protester. Even that one quote was not about the issues, but about strategy: "'if we can pass our message, we have gone in a good direction,'" was what the USA Today chose to quote. In contrast, USA Today did a whole article on corporate executive officers (CEOs) who did not attend the summit because they were not invited!(3) There were more quotes in USA Today from people who did not attend (CEOs) than from people who did (protesters). By the way, in response, MIM would say that the anarchists in Seattle did help the people in Quebec City pass on their message. We doubt the events would have attracted as much attention without the spectacular actions of the militant anarchists in Seattle in 1999. The reason for that is that the monopoly media is unable to foster true discussion of the substance of issues and prefers to sell papers and television news by covering sensational occurrences of violence. The owners of the media won't allow discussion of substance in their media, but they condemn all protesters for "violence" while making money selling papers about it. MIM is not saying that the violence actually helps the proletariat through news coverage. Without an independent media like MIM Notes, merely exciting the bourgeois media and enabling it to sell more papers does not solve anything. Activists who fashion their tactics for the mainstream media are going to deliver distorted messages. The most culpable in this regard are the major imperialist media who report nothing from the protest side of things and the lower-middle class newspapers that make their front pages photos with a headline--as in the style of the Daily News in New York, the Boston Herald and "le journal de montreal." Le journal de montreal had two consecutive days with 25 pages total coverage of the demonstrations and the most spectacular pictures of violence possible on the front pages with a headline on one day saying "War of gas." Out of the bourgeois media coverage, "le journal de montreal" was the best, the only coverage aside from in the New York Times that we saw that actually at least quoted the chants of demonstrators, including those against capitalism. The New York Times also attempted more even-handed coverage than would have been likely in the pre- Internet era. The New York Times is finding itself outmaneuvered by Internet and cable competition and is finding its readership dwindling increasingly to intellectuals who actually read newspapers. For this reason, the New York Times is feeling some economic pressure to change its coverage and move more toward the left-wing of parasitism in the imperialist countries. Nonetheless, CNN is the most-read bourgeois web site and USA Today and the Wall Street Journal have the most subscribers of newspapers in the United $tates. The Wall Street Journal as of April 22nd had not a single article quoting either directly or indirectly a protester. The Wall Street Journal of April 19 did make much of unproven police assertions about six people arrested in previous days for owning explosives. It had no quotes from the people arrested. In total, the Wall Street Journal printed one sentence about the view of protesters, "Anti-FTAA activists complain the official talks are being driven by corporate interests, and worry that they will ignore social issues such as working conditions and the environment."(3) As far as "freedom" goes, the Wall Street Journal, CNN and USA Today might as well be openly owned by the government. It would be much more honest than running 95% quotes from government officials ranging from prime ministers to police. While we at MIM Notes are openly saying we are a proletarian newspaper and CNN, USA Today etc. do not openly say they are pro-imperialist, it is available for all readers to see which media in fact provides more balanced coverage from various points of view. The positive aspect of all of this negative and ignorant coverage from the bourgeois press is that it teaches people the need for an independent media of the oppressed. Large numbers learned first-hand. We invite others to attend demonstrations, work hard in movements and find out for themselves how the media handles them--instead of taking the "democratic" mass media at its word. Notes: 1. http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/americas/04/22/summit.americas .02/index.html?s=2 2. http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/americas/04/20/king.interview/ 3. Wall Street Journal, Christopher Chipelo, "Quebec Braces for Possible Violence at This Weekend's Trade Summit," 20April2001.