Savaged: Thousands Rally at the State Capitol Building, Detroit Newspapers Decide it’s Not “News”
by Chris Savage
On Saturday, May 21st, 2011, at least 6,000 people gathered on the lawn of the Michigan Capitol building to protest Governor Rick Snyder’s budget proposal which slashes nearly $1 billion from education funding in our state. The rally drew educators, parents, students and other supporters of public education from all over the state to take a stand for prioritizing funding for education. Given that the massive cuts to education are being used to pay, in part, for an 86 percent tax cut for Michigan businesses, passions on this issue run high.
Here’s what it looked like:
From behind the podium
Stage Left
Stage Right
A sea of red; several thousand Michiganders, there to support public education in Michigan.
That’s news, right? How many times a year do you hear about 6,000 people showing up to express their opinions about anything in this state?
Funny thing is, neither the Detroit News or the Detroit Free Press reported one single word about it. The two largest newspapers in our state decided that over 6,000 people protesting our newly-elected Governor and his Republican friends in the Legislature eliminating $1 billion in funding for education is not news—not worthy of coverage.
The Free Press actually reported that it was going to happen that morning. In their article, they noted:
Weekday rallies promoted by the same groups have drawn several thousand people to the Capitol lawn on multiple occasions earlier this year.
Weekday rallies earlier in the year (when weather conditions were less favorable) drew several thousand people. This was a weekend rally. Surely they must have known the turnout would be huge. Lansing Mayor and Governor Snyder’s opponent in last November’s election, Virg Bernero, was a featured speaker. UAW President Bob King spoke as well. Teachers, students, and parents were all slated to tell their stories at the podium.
Not news? Really?
I had been attending the Michigan Summit in East Lansing that day (another event that went entirely unreported by these news outlets, I might add) and, before driving back home, I stopped by the rally that had been in progress for an hour by the time I got there. I snapped some photos. I chatted with some folks that were collecting signatures on petitions to recall Governor Snyder. All told, I was only there for about 30 minutes. But, in that time, I learned enough to write about it and I certainly learned enough to know this was not only news, it was big news. And it was worth reporting.
So, what did these two news outlets report about the day after the humongous rally?
The main story on the Detroit News’ website featured Bob Seger, aging Michigan rocker, reporting that he had his last show at the Palace in Detroit (which isn’t in Detroit.)
The Detroit Free Press‘s website had a top-of-the fold article about how, although the Rapture came and went without any rapturing going on, “many in Michigan believe world will end one day.”
Now that is news!
Here’s the thing: these two news outlets didn’t even have to send a reporter to the rally. The Associated Press had a wire story about it. Even the conservative-leaning Livingston County Press & Argus from Howell & Brighton had a couple of paragraphs about the rally, cadged from the AP’s feed. The Chicago Tribune (not Chicago, Michigan — Chicago, Illinois) had an article about it. I read about it on blogs in EUROPE!!! But not the News or Free Press.
On Monday, I sent Tweets to both newspapers: “@Freep @DetNews: How could you miss over 6000 people rallying at the Capitol? Get raptured or something???”
The News didn’t respond but I got a couple of responses from the Freep: “Will pass it on to the reporting staff for sure – thx!”
and, “Yes, we previewed it – and will pass along your comment to the political reporting team about the event coverage.”
I followed up with emails to staff at both newspapers, asking them for a statement regarding their complete lack of coverage of such a large rally. I never received a response.
Bill Moyers once said, “There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle.” In Michigan right now, we are in an epic battle over what we value as Michiganders. Where we spend our tax money is a statement about where our priorities are. 6,000 people showed up on a sunny spring day to stand for the public education of our children and its importance to the future of our state. On the other side of the debate stand the Republicans for whom corporate profits are a higher priority.
No matter what side of this issue you stand on, clearly a massive protest demonstration by thousands of citizens is news. News that should be reported with as much fanfare as news about what our Legislators and Governor are doing is reported. We need a strong, diverse and independent media. Without it, we will have an poorly-informed citizenry and effective democracy is not possible. The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News owe the people of Michigan an apology and, more importantly, they owe us better reporting. Their lack of coverage of this event is an implicit, if not explicit “taking of sides” on the issue of education funding.
My message to them is this: when you get out-reported by a blogger from Dexter, you need to figure out what you’re doing wrong. If you don’t, you don’t stand a chance of survival as a media outlet. And the citizens of our state, as well as democracy, will be poorer for it.
Looks like you are moving up in the world my friend!
Grea work!
From FACEBOOK: “Surprise, surprise, surprise, media snub…Palin must of had a book signing in Alaska and the corporate owned fascist news media had to cover that first.”—Randolph Polasek
From FACEBOOK: “I can understand your frustrations with the media. It might be a good idea to flood Detroit newspapers with Letters to the Editor.”—Gray Holcomb
From FACEBOOK: “Like” isn’t exactly the right word, but FB doesn’t have a “that sucks” button.”—Richard Kaczynski
From FACEBOOK: “How on earth is a rally attended by thousands of people not news worthy?”—Ashley Crawford
From FACEBOOK: “Both papers endorsed Snyder!”—Mary Powers
From FACEBOOK: “Surprise, surprise, surprise, media snub…Palin must of had a book signing in Alaska and the corporate owned fascist news media had to cover that first.”—Philip Barger
From FACEBOOK: “Just goes to show that “News” in America is really just propaganda. This only difference is that it isn’t fed to us by the state, but by the private sector with a political agenda. It is almost impossible to get the objective truth from our media. The best you can hope for is to stumble accross an objective opinion now and then. The only “Free Press” there is, is that which we write and share among ourselves.”—Curtis Hay
From FACEBOOK: “No reporting is sort of like Fox news constantly commenting that Mr. Snyder is doing a great job.”—Peg Podnar
From FACEBOOK: “Thats because The Detorit News is an anti-Democrat, axtreme right wing conservative newspaper! Do you really think they will report something that makes the new Republican Governor look bad? Hell NO!”—Frank T. Lemanski
From FACEBOOK: “This is how Snyder won.. He must have gotten big contributions from the media for his campaign.”—Susan McCleod
From FACEBOOK: “That sort of absence has to be planned by the Newspaper. It doesn’t just happen. Time to look into who owns Detroit Newspapers and make their lack of news coverage news.”—Denise Tuggle
From FACEBOOK: “Call the papers’ city desk and complain.”—Dave Roth
From FACEBOOK: “Thats why I won’t even go to their free content Web pages. they deserve to go under ASAP.”—Richard Kuszmar
From FACEBOOK: “From FACEBOOK: “I subscribe to way too many feeds. Can’t keep them all straight sometimes. As a Michigander, this one stood out. The recall effort is just now getting starting and I am all about getting the facts out there.”—Lisa Kemmis
Not much coverage U.P. here either, but, since “newspapers” are owned by corporations and the Repugs are all about corporations, it is understandable. After all, Snyder and Co. are giving corps a huge gift at our expense. Time to give them the “bums rush”.
Instead of being jaded and/or outraged about the fact that major media didn’t cover the protest, why not organize demonstrations & sit-ins etc. outside the T.V. stations to pressure media to cover these stories? -Jenny Sieck
From FACEBOOK: “Of course they didn’t! Why should the corporate newspapers care about the people? It’s not in their best interest to rally the public against a corrupt state government!”—Eve Mallett
From FACEBOOK: “Who owns that paper?? And should Dems stop buying it?”—Linda Doscotch
I emailed both the Freep and the News asking “where’s the news?”. I got no response from the Freep, but the News wrote the following:
We don’t publish a newspaper on Sundays so you’d have to check the Sunday Free Press to see if they had a story. I’m not sure if they did. Since we don’t have a Sunday paper we didn’t send a reporter to the event and would have relied on the Associated Press to cover it. By Monday, it’s an old story, so I’m guessing that’s the reason you didn’t see an item in this morning’s paper.
We do try to update our Web site all day Saturday with breaking news, however. Unfortunately, AP didn’t send their first story on the protests until just before 9:30 p.m. We should have posted that story on our Web site Saturday night or even Sunday morning, but I can’t tell you why we didn’t since those who work Saturday night at not her today. Their weekly shifts usually go from Tuesday through Saturday or Wednesday through Sunday.
We have covered many of the protests in Lansing over the past few months on both sides of the issue, so we certainly have let our readers know there is discontent over and support for Gov. Snyder’s plans and those of the Legislature. We’ll continue to monitor those events as they come up and will staff them when possible.
Thank you for your questions and I hope I’ve answered them to your satisfaction.
Nick Assendelft
Politics and Government Editor
The Detroit News
(313) 222-5374
http://www.detnews.com
From FACEBOOK: “No surprise there!”—Felicia Anne Brown
From FACEBOOK: “Snyder is not only a nerd but also a greedy self righteous puppet who only cares about pushing through his right wing cronies agenda. And I thought Engler stunk!!”—Daren Mcpherson
From FACEBOOK: “I don’t guarantee writing local channels will help. I emailed ch 7 the day the language for the recall was approved, and asked why they had no coverage. Since then, I am apparently banned from posting on their website. When I emailed and asked them why I could not post, they never replied. So don’t count on them for anything.”—Laurie Zandarelli
From FACEBOOK: “This is where Citizen Bloggers come into play. Please support Bloggers/Writers like A2Politico, Daily Kos, (Reach Out Job Search-My Blog) and others. Also, the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News DID REPORT on the rally. We should give credit, were credit is due, in this case.”—Monica Ross-Williams
From FACEBOOK: “News media will not cover these rallys because they probably are also getting a tax break. They are going to downplay this so people will not get interested in it. Would you help advertise your tax break away?”—New Era Crusaders
From FACEBOOK: “Mainstream media never covers the struggle of the folks on the bottom of the barrel. They have an agenda, ever sickening one, and they follow it. For instance, they will never cover Native/American Indian issues, never. I knew someone who worked at WXYZ Detroit and she said to me,”it won’t happen.” They just don’t care about our issues and never will. Marginal people, oppressed people and low income people are what mainstream media doesn’t care about. Its a fact. Also people don’t care about Michigan around the country, they just don’t… we will be ignored, even with great injustices occurring right now.”—Cecilia Rose LaPointe
From FACEBOOK: “Thanks for the link! I, too, was appalled at the lack of coverage at this, my first rally. It was great to be in the middle of that sea of red!!!!”—Judy Phillips
From FACEBOOK: “Wisconsin went through the same thing, to the point that I would swear there was suppression of the news. The Ed Schultz show was the first to report any of Walker’s garbage. It took mainstream news a good week to figure out that this was important. Keep protesting, keep collecting those signatures, write to your newspapers, get your word out. Eventually, even the dolts in the mainstream figure it out.”—Deb Zieher
From FACEBOOK: “Write your papers and call or write your TV stations and demand coverage.”—Mark Sleep
From FACEBOOK: “It made me crazy this past weekend that no one covered it. I heard it was 10,000 people — definitely should have been covered.”—Sharon Baseman
From FACEBOOK: “To me it’s just very strange that something as big as the rallys and the recall haven’t made more news. I think I’ve seen it on tv MAYBE 2 times…if that. And I’ve never heard anything about the recall. There has got to be a reason for this…whether it’s money or the news people being told not to run stories on it…we will never know. It’s just so sad…it’s like the biggest thing going on in the state right now and there’s no news covering anything about it?!?! Something weird is going on…”—Jen Wood
From FACEBOOK: “Why would they cover the recall. Snyder’s giving them the pension money that belongs to the pensioners.”—Joe Saunders
From FACEBOOK: “The News and Freep have become bad jokes, shadows of their once excellent selves. They have one foot in the grave.”—Steve Cartwright
From FACEBOOK: “There was no coverage on TV either…..what is wrong with these people. This is the biggest news yet and no one from the right ever thought the majority of us would ever give so much support to each other in this time of crisis. Wonder what they would do if none of us bought their paper anymore. It wasn’t in my local Northern Mi paper either nor on our local channels.”—Diana Hartwick
From FACEBOOK: “Only in Michigan!”—Scott Haas
From FACEBOOK: “Stop complaining that the media did not cover the event, they don’t care okay. Do the recall petition and exceed that and make it a success and then u will get their attention.”—Brian E. Weaver
From FACEBOOK: “Next time invite a few tea baggers and the media will be all over it.”—Jamie Racklyef
From FACEBOOK: “MSNBC gave WI coverage. Our own local news was a joke. You have to keep creating your own videos and sharing because this fight does not interest the media and/or is getting suppressed.”—Ingrid Henry
From FACEBOOK: “Why am I not surprised? The local media here sucks.”—Christopher Hill
From FACEBOOK: “They gave Wisconsin lots of coverage and still are.Our message is just imporant wheres the coverage?”—Ellen Hart
From FACEBOOK: “Liberal media my ass.”—Steven P. Schonfeld
Welcome to my world. What are you fussing about anyway? This exact sort of blind-eye behavior has been directed at conservative groups and especially the Tea Party movement for ages now. Now that the slow death of the American press has become a bipartisan issue, perhaps something will be done to restore a free and independent press in this country.
Right on! I’m originally from Stockbridge, so I understand the comparison between Dexter and Detroit. And the fact that Detroit and their public school system was the first area impacted by the Snyder administration’s decisions makes me wonder who exactly is dictating the news in Detroit? It is certainly NOT the news outlets and their so-called journalists who have an OBLIGATION to report what is relevant to it’s citizens. Have public schools and the future of our state really become an irrelevant issue??
I have been wondering myself where all the coverage for this is. I am a custodian for Grand Ledge Schools. I was there that day. And every day since I have notice they is not a lot of coverage as these cuts are coming down this week. But what did come to my mind. Is slaying the business tax and helping out business in get ahead is why I think there is a lack of coverage. Newspapers and TV stations I am sure will benefit from the cuts to the schools and the money going to businesses. Just my thoughts !