What the Media Hides From Us
What happens in London stays in London. The media has given considerable
attention to the huge pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong over the past
several weeks yet when the same thing happens on our soil, the same media
suddenly remains very silent. Did you know about this? Probably not, because
the BBC and other reliable, and
not-so-reliable, sources failed to give us any insight into the peaceful
demonstrations that I drove past every day yet didn’t find any information
about in the papers or online. This leaves us with a few questions regarding
our government, its agenda and the supposed freedoms we are entitled to as
citizens of the United Kingdom: freedom of speech and expression. Furthermore
the reaction, or lack thereof, from the national media in particular, reveals
how much information is hidden from us by an industry seemingly manipulated by
politics.
Who was demonstrating? What
did they want?
Occupy Democracy, which stems from the Occupy London movement,
took over Parliament Square next to Westminster on 16th October 2014
with the aim of challenging the status quo and raising awareness on a number of
issues through “talks, workshops, community assemblies, music and theatre”[1] and
directing “the energy from current single-issue struggles into a critical mass
that can radically challenge the corrupt and unrepresentative system.”[2] They
stand by the argument that we live in a “system that takes the power to make
local decisions out of [our] hands” and that voting every several years in
general elections is not enough when our government ignores our voices to act
in its own interest; prioritising profit over people.
In order to prevent any kind of spreading of such ideals it seems that the
government, its police and the media did everything in their power to oust
the movement as quickly as it arrived. This meant bringing up “anti-camping” in
Parliament Square bylaws, including prohibiting the use of and confiscating tarpaulins and pizza
boxes as “structures” used for sitting on by the protesters. And as for the media, their task was simple: ignoring, not reporting, staying
silent, so as to not spread news of the movement and God forbid, attract any
other occupiers.
On the night of Saturday 18th, three days into the
Occupy protest, the Metropolitan Police forces accompanied by their trained
German shepherds arrived, giving the protesters half an hour to leave or they
would be put under arrest. People were arrested. People were put in custody.
All in the name of peacefully fighting for more rights? The move seemed drastic
and I would go as far as saying that the action taken by the police in this
case almost reflects those of an authoritarian regime (see Turkey). These people were not
violent. They were simply staying on the grounds to have their voices heard, which doesn’t seem worthy of custody. And the fact that this didn’t receive coverage from the
media, or at least very, very little from our national media raises further
concerns.
What does this tell us
the about the role of the press?
We could argue that the press had other important stories to cover and that peaceful demonstrations at Parliament Square are on-going and so why would this particular case raise more concern. But it's the way the events of the third night were dealt with which disturbs me, and that's when the media should have stepped in. At the time of the events, the only articles to be found
online were those from foreign media services; more precisely from Russia Today. The media is a key tool for the
government to propagate its own agenda, especially when it comes to campaigning
and election time. Viewers tend to already have established viewpoints when
consulting newspapers, the web or television, so the media can more easily
target and influence those who have not formed such political opinions.
But when they simply are not
reporting, how are we meant to understand or build up opinions, stances and
perspectives of the society we live in and more precisely in this case, the
government we "trust". News channels will always be politically
orientated. This is evident in the current series of events that have
been dominating the headlines since the summer: take a look at reports from Chinese media and Western media about the HK protests to get an idea. But for a news channel like the
BBC, which is free from both political and commercial influence by charter, priding itself on maintaining impartiality and remaining, to an extent, neutral, to not report such an event domestically, is simply quite shocking.
In the words of LSE professor and author David Graeber, “you can tell a lot about the
moral quality of a society by what is, and is not, considered news”.
Occupy Democracy is returning to Parliament Square on 21st November at 6pm and we will be there to report and ask the protesters a few questions that will help us understand a little more about the movement, the problems and the desired outcomes.
Find out more about the movement: http://occupydemocracy.org.uk/
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