Having been a protester, but never an organizer, I didn’t feel it was my place to speak for everyone. There are a lot of reasons any given protester might not want to speak to the media.
Something I never thought about. On the ”reporter” side, it makes sense - go straight to the protestors, attempt to craft a story with their input. I'm saying this from a purposefully naive stance, as in this would be the classic picture of what a ”reporter” does. Wearing this hat, my impression of the protestors would be lowered by their uncooperative attitude. From another angle, the reporter’s work becomes a hit piece.
I keep coming back to age. Who has a better feel for our current media climate? Me, at 52, living suburban life or the youth making their cause known? Most importantly - how much more aware might they be about making statements given our digital social media world? In short, I understand a lack of trust, and good reason for not trusting ”the media”.
100% with you. Parker Molloy on today's The Present Age Substack addresses the same problem. It should come as no surprise that people often hear what they want to hear and tune out the parts that don't fit their narrative. Say a student says "I just want PEACE from the river to the sea?" How in this day can they trust that the Peace part will be reported? Or will the reporter hear "supports Hamas" and report that "many students are advocating "from the river to the sea." The protestors, if they chose to speak, might well be more nuanced than the reporters.
Take a look at Wikipedia on the phrase: some historians see the phrase as originating in original Zionism, before 1948. And as the article points out, "The 1977 election manifesto of the right-wing Israeli Likud party said: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
It is the same dynamic, of taking a particular phrase and redefining it in a detrimental way as a form of attack, that is in full force in the GOP propaganda. Consider all concern for social welfare as "socialist" or "woke." Or any book about a kid with two dads as "pornographic." There are certainly overgeneralizations made by the left--not all trumpites are actually morons. But the right's use of it is far more widespread and dangerous to any attempts to have an actual political dialog anymore.
You’re not wrong though if you’ve given serious thought to what you are protesting and have the confidence to articulate it I see no issue. The understanding has to be that individuals are not spokespersons for everyone in the movement
I’d say the biggest problem is the possibility of twisted reporting of what you say. You need training to be able to say “and by this I mean X, not Y” and to insist that the reporter actually acknowledges that he has heard the distinction.
Patris, Harlan Ellison discussed this in his THE GLASS TEAT columns about protesting the Vietnam War. He said we show up well-dressed, articulate, and ready to make our points—and the media only wants to talk to the scruffy, dirty, filthy HIPPIES throwing things!
The MSM wouldn't want to talk to you because you might put a dent in their narrative—same as Ronnie Raygunz's former speechwriter wouldn't want to talk to you about because she already knows what she's going to say, she just wants a few quotes to grease her prejudices.
I would also like to say to all you Ride-or-Die for Biden types? This isn't a good look for him, especially not when he needs younger voters to turn out to prevent Trump from becoming President-For-Life. He needs to start listening to the kids, even if he can't do what they want right now—though with Netanyahu and AIPAC increasingly embracing Donald Trump, I can't think of a BETTER time to chuck Bloodthirsty Bibi under the bus where he belongs!
I'm scared Biden's got his back up now because a growing number of people are going around calling him "Genocide Joe" and "Biden the Butcher" for not divesting from Israel NOW! NOW! I said NOW!!! (Sorry, channelled Trump there for a second....)
It worries me that nobody he'll listen to is saying, "Uh, Joe? Boss? This isn't the right time to start channeling Nixon and Reagan on Vietnam. Maybe we should find somebody younger to talk to these kids, somebody who's not blinkered by the same Cold War mindset you and everybody in the DoD and State Department seem to have about this issue...."
Second: we’re not divesting because it’s a practical matter not ideological issue.
Israel is our base in the Middle East. Franky i support its existence apart from this latest debacle. It’s a pragmatic position.
I despise Netanyahu, but also I despise radical Islamists.
I abhor the death of innocents. But I do not want Biden to divest.
Third: if this is a deal breaker for you please know I want a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons and support a Palestinian state, but do not want Israel to be abandoned by us. Ever.
But it’s fine with me if you no longer follow me. Thanks.
I am not convinced that our alliance with Israel currently benefits us; I think there's a certain amount of inertia, and people like biden, who have been close to Israel for a long time, have trouble seeing that many of the pluses and minuses have changed.
Netanyahu also deliberately undermined the non radical Islamist option in order to kneecap the possibility of a Palestinian state (which is one of those things it's not clear that Biden is necessarily factoring in.)
I think the peace process probably requires American facilitation, so it would e bad to completely divest in that sense. I do think we should reconsider constantly blocking UN censure votes, and sending Israel aid even when they commit warcrimes, given that said aid is in violation of US and international law.
Support for Israel does not equate to support for Netanyahu and the religious extremists he made a deal with. Their fanaticism is as depraved as those of other religious extremists - anywhere.
Nope, that pretty much covers how I feel about it, Patris! I respect you right back, so that's not an issue.
Unfortunately, it's also what makes Netanyahu's behavior possible, because he knows that as well as we do. Bibi also knows that once the war's over he's toast—between the corruption trial (trials?) he was staring down the barrel of prior to October 7, 2023, and Hamas's attack "slipping past" 🤔 Israel's vaunted intelligence network, there's no way a peace treaty isn't the prelude to his political career ending in disgrace and probable prison time.
So it's in HIS best interest to keep things going for as long as possible, and if it expands into a war that engulfs the entire Middle East? 🤷♂️ Well, then—America AND Israel need him too much to remove him, amirite? (I can see Trump watching what Netanyahu does, and scribbling notes onto the back of his copy of "Project 2025" under the heading "How 2 Keep ME! Prezident 4 Life!") (Yes, I do hear Trump saying those words in a Tom Terrific voice—https://youtu.be/puD_w94RHuE?si=cYukmFlJCYCOljWC .)
For now, I think what Biden needs to do is tamp down the fires here at home with both students, administrators, and law enforcement—first by getting the cops to back the fuck off, and college administrators to stop calling them in at the first sign of a broken window. Then, he needs to address the nation about why the United States can't just—pull out of Israel and the Middle East altogether without making matters worse than they already are, and come up with some carrot-and-stick plan that will make the current Israeli Government stand down from attacking Palestinians, and discourage those other Middle Eastern governments/groups from jumping into the breach to raise their own hay.
In order words, Biden needs to act Presidential, in both a domestic and foreign policy way.
Wait, this is Peggy Noonan and one NYT reporter criticizing the protesters for not talking to Peggy Noonan and suddenly the entire news media is acting in bad faith because colonialism? I'm pretty sure that by the standard you are employing, this post is also in bad faith. I.e. you assume the entire news media is acting in bad faith because colonialism and are willing to point to any bits of behavior of a couple of individuals to justify that belief.
For the record, I agree that the protesters are not obligated to speak to the media and that individual protesters are most likely correct not to. But the media does take exactly the same approach for any organization or gropu it reports on: it tries to get unpolished statements from people who aren't spokespeople to try to get a broader sense of what is going on than the official line. And the news media should in fact be doing that. That a couple of reporters are publicly peevish that they don't succeed is not admirable, but also not that big a deal. Especially when one of them is Peggy Noonan, who is peevish almost all the time.
Lots of people agreed with them, and protestors are generally insulted and demonized. You probably noticed they had the cops called on them, were arrested, beaten, and evicted.
I guess I'd just also add that, while yes, Peggy Noonan is a doofus, she's also quite influential and powerful; the Wall Street Journal, the NYT and the Atlantic (where a columnist also dumped on protestors for not talking to the media) are all big venues with lots of sway that people take seriously. It would be nice if you could just dismiss and ignore bad faith takes from such venues, but unfortunately they do shape public opinion, and so I think it's worth thinking about why they are (for example) so hostile to student protestors, rather than just shrugging and saying, "well they're dopes so they don't matter." Trump's also a peevish dope, but again, and unfortunately, his prejudices affect people, and I think Peggy Noonan's do as well.
If everybody agreed with the protesters and treated them kindly and only said nice things about them, it wouldn't be much of a protest. I've been at protests on multiple occasions, sometimes at the exact same venues, that were broken up by the police including with at least some degree of violence. Protesters were prepared for it, had legal aid and observers present and in fact provoking the arrests and even the police violence was a strategic part of protest. This is also true and documented of civil rights protests, including the famous ones lead by MLK at Selma. If these protesters are not out there provoking an extreme reaction intentionally, something has gone horribly wrong with expectations. I do think that may be the case, certainly university faculty have begun to actively encourage the idea that these students in this generation should be able to protest without consequences. While that might in some sense be nice, I do think it likely negates some of the utility of protest. And emphasizing Peggy Noonan being peevish in the context of police violence is just an odd take. I guess you are just another media figure looking for a novel take, but this one really seems a reach.
I mean, civil rights protestors were beaten badly becasue the cops were incredibly racist? Yet you evoke their experience while denying that backlash could be linked to stigma, and even suggest that the violence against the protestors was good and right and that no one should suggest that the perpetrators were racist? I'm not sure what you're arguing here? Are you really saying that writers shouldn't criticize cops for beating up protestors during the civil rights movement because the protestors asked for it?
elite opinion often drives and justifies elite violence; elite media figures provide justification for escalation. so yes, Noonan is collaborating with admin authorities and police in delegitimizing protest and suggesting that protestors need to be disciplined.
Having been a protester, but never an organizer, I didn’t feel it was my place to speak for everyone. There are a lot of reasons any given protester might not want to speak to the media.
Something I never thought about. On the ”reporter” side, it makes sense - go straight to the protestors, attempt to craft a story with their input. I'm saying this from a purposefully naive stance, as in this would be the classic picture of what a ”reporter” does. Wearing this hat, my impression of the protestors would be lowered by their uncooperative attitude. From another angle, the reporter’s work becomes a hit piece.
I keep coming back to age. Who has a better feel for our current media climate? Me, at 52, living suburban life or the youth making their cause known? Most importantly - how much more aware might they be about making statements given our digital social media world? In short, I understand a lack of trust, and good reason for not trusting ”the media”.
100% with you. Parker Molloy on today's The Present Age Substack addresses the same problem. It should come as no surprise that people often hear what they want to hear and tune out the parts that don't fit their narrative. Say a student says "I just want PEACE from the river to the sea?" How in this day can they trust that the Peace part will be reported? Or will the reporter hear "supports Hamas" and report that "many students are advocating "from the river to the sea." The protestors, if they chose to speak, might well be more nuanced than the reporters.
Take a look at Wikipedia on the phrase: some historians see the phrase as originating in original Zionism, before 1948. And as the article points out, "The 1977 election manifesto of the right-wing Israeli Likud party said: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
It is the same dynamic, of taking a particular phrase and redefining it in a detrimental way as a form of attack, that is in full force in the GOP propaganda. Consider all concern for social welfare as "socialist" or "woke." Or any book about a kid with two dads as "pornographic." There are certainly overgeneralizations made by the left--not all trumpites are actually morons. But the right's use of it is far more widespread and dangerous to any attempts to have an actual political dialog anymore.
As an older former protestor (Vietnam) can only say I would have wanted to speak to reporters.
Protestors can speak to reporters...they just need to have media training first!
Which I think is pretty reasonable given the stakes and the hostility of the media to the cause and the protestors...
You’re not wrong though if you’ve given serious thought to what you are protesting and have the confidence to articulate it I see no issue. The understanding has to be that individuals are not spokespersons for everyone in the movement
I’d say the biggest problem is the possibility of twisted reporting of what you say. You need training to be able to say “and by this I mean X, not Y” and to insist that the reporter actually acknowledges that he has heard the distinction.
You’d need to record the interview to guarantee that
Patris, Harlan Ellison discussed this in his THE GLASS TEAT columns about protesting the Vietnam War. He said we show up well-dressed, articulate, and ready to make our points—and the media only wants to talk to the scruffy, dirty, filthy HIPPIES throwing things!
The MSM wouldn't want to talk to you because you might put a dent in their narrative—same as Ronnie Raygunz's former speechwriter wouldn't want to talk to you about because she already knows what she's going to say, she just wants a few quotes to grease her prejudices.
I would also like to say to all you Ride-or-Die for Biden types? This isn't a good look for him, especially not when he needs younger voters to turn out to prevent Trump from becoming President-For-Life. He needs to start listening to the kids, even if he can't do what they want right now—though with Netanyahu and AIPAC increasingly embracing Donald Trump, I can't think of a BETTER time to chuck Bloodthirsty Bibi under the bus where he belongs!
He does need someone or some advice on how to crack through the contrived bullshit being piled up at colleges over this issue. I agree.
I'm scared Biden's got his back up now because a growing number of people are going around calling him "Genocide Joe" and "Biden the Butcher" for not divesting from Israel NOW! NOW! I said NOW!!! (Sorry, channelled Trump there for a second....)
It worries me that nobody he'll listen to is saying, "Uh, Joe? Boss? This isn't the right time to start channeling Nixon and Reagan on Vietnam. Maybe we should find somebody younger to talk to these kids, somebody who's not blinkered by the same Cold War mindset you and everybody in the DoD and State Department seem to have about this issue...."
First: I respect you
Second: we’re not divesting because it’s a practical matter not ideological issue.
Israel is our base in the Middle East. Franky i support its existence apart from this latest debacle. It’s a pragmatic position.
I despise Netanyahu, but also I despise radical Islamists.
I abhor the death of innocents. But I do not want Biden to divest.
Third: if this is a deal breaker for you please know I want a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons and support a Palestinian state, but do not want Israel to be abandoned by us. Ever.
But it’s fine with me if you no longer follow me. Thanks.
I am not convinced that our alliance with Israel currently benefits us; I think there's a certain amount of inertia, and people like biden, who have been close to Israel for a long time, have trouble seeing that many of the pluses and minuses have changed.
Netanyahu also deliberately undermined the non radical Islamist option in order to kneecap the possibility of a Palestinian state (which is one of those things it's not clear that Biden is necessarily factoring in.)
I think the peace process probably requires American facilitation, so it would e bad to completely divest in that sense. I do think we should reconsider constantly blocking UN censure votes, and sending Israel aid even when they commit warcrimes, given that said aid is in violation of US and international law.
Support for Israel does not equate to support for Netanyahu and the religious extremists he made a deal with. Their fanaticism is as depraved as those of other religious extremists - anywhere.
We need to demand world court scrutiny for war crimes. Yes.
Carrot and stick to Israel—behave, and the aid will continue to flow; don't, and we'll cut you off!
Nope, that pretty much covers how I feel about it, Patris! I respect you right back, so that's not an issue.
Unfortunately, it's also what makes Netanyahu's behavior possible, because he knows that as well as we do. Bibi also knows that once the war's over he's toast—between the corruption trial (trials?) he was staring down the barrel of prior to October 7, 2023, and Hamas's attack "slipping past" 🤔 Israel's vaunted intelligence network, there's no way a peace treaty isn't the prelude to his political career ending in disgrace and probable prison time.
So it's in HIS best interest to keep things going for as long as possible, and if it expands into a war that engulfs the entire Middle East? 🤷♂️ Well, then—America AND Israel need him too much to remove him, amirite? (I can see Trump watching what Netanyahu does, and scribbling notes onto the back of his copy of "Project 2025" under the heading "How 2 Keep ME! Prezident 4 Life!") (Yes, I do hear Trump saying those words in a Tom Terrific voice—https://youtu.be/puD_w94RHuE?si=cYukmFlJCYCOljWC .)
For now, I think what Biden needs to do is tamp down the fires here at home with both students, administrators, and law enforcement—first by getting the cops to back the fuck off, and college administrators to stop calling them in at the first sign of a broken window. Then, he needs to address the nation about why the United States can't just—pull out of Israel and the Middle East altogether without making matters worse than they already are, and come up with some carrot-and-stick plan that will make the current Israeli Government stand down from attacking Palestinians, and discourage those other Middle Eastern governments/groups from jumping into the breach to raise their own hay.
In order words, Biden needs to act Presidential, in both a domestic and foreign policy way.
double bind=damned if you do, damned if you don't
Wait, this is Peggy Noonan and one NYT reporter criticizing the protesters for not talking to Peggy Noonan and suddenly the entire news media is acting in bad faith because colonialism? I'm pretty sure that by the standard you are employing, this post is also in bad faith. I.e. you assume the entire news media is acting in bad faith because colonialism and are willing to point to any bits of behavior of a couple of individuals to justify that belief.
For the record, I agree that the protesters are not obligated to speak to the media and that individual protesters are most likely correct not to. But the media does take exactly the same approach for any organization or gropu it reports on: it tries to get unpolished statements from people who aren't spokespeople to try to get a broader sense of what is going on than the official line. And the news media should in fact be doing that. That a couple of reporters are publicly peevish that they don't succeed is not admirable, but also not that big a deal. Especially when one of them is Peggy Noonan, who is peevish almost all the time.
Lots of people agreed with them, and protestors are generally insulted and demonized. You probably noticed they had the cops called on them, were arrested, beaten, and evicted.
I guess I'd just also add that, while yes, Peggy Noonan is a doofus, she's also quite influential and powerful; the Wall Street Journal, the NYT and the Atlantic (where a columnist also dumped on protestors for not talking to the media) are all big venues with lots of sway that people take seriously. It would be nice if you could just dismiss and ignore bad faith takes from such venues, but unfortunately they do shape public opinion, and so I think it's worth thinking about why they are (for example) so hostile to student protestors, rather than just shrugging and saying, "well they're dopes so they don't matter." Trump's also a peevish dope, but again, and unfortunately, his prejudices affect people, and I think Peggy Noonan's do as well.
If everybody agreed with the protesters and treated them kindly and only said nice things about them, it wouldn't be much of a protest. I've been at protests on multiple occasions, sometimes at the exact same venues, that were broken up by the police including with at least some degree of violence. Protesters were prepared for it, had legal aid and observers present and in fact provoking the arrests and even the police violence was a strategic part of protest. This is also true and documented of civil rights protests, including the famous ones lead by MLK at Selma. If these protesters are not out there provoking an extreme reaction intentionally, something has gone horribly wrong with expectations. I do think that may be the case, certainly university faculty have begun to actively encourage the idea that these students in this generation should be able to protest without consequences. While that might in some sense be nice, I do think it likely negates some of the utility of protest. And emphasizing Peggy Noonan being peevish in the context of police violence is just an odd take. I guess you are just another media figure looking for a novel take, but this one really seems a reach.
I mean, civil rights protestors were beaten badly becasue the cops were incredibly racist? Yet you evoke their experience while denying that backlash could be linked to stigma, and even suggest that the violence against the protestors was good and right and that no one should suggest that the perpetrators were racist? I'm not sure what you're arguing here? Are you really saying that writers shouldn't criticize cops for beating up protestors during the civil rights movement because the protestors asked for it?
elite opinion often drives and justifies elite violence; elite media figures provide justification for escalation. so yes, Noonan is collaborating with admin authorities and police in delegitimizing protest and suggesting that protestors need to be disciplined.
Victor Ray wrote about this issue as well...I don't think my take is particularly novel, fwiw. https://jacobin.com/2024/05/student-protesters-mainstream-media-coverage