This morning the Day devoted much of page 2 (with a teaser on page 1) to an anti-mosque (here we must be reminded that they’re not really even building a mosque) demonstration in New York City, which according to the Day (I couldn’t find the article on-line) drew “hundreds” of people.
I have often noted how the media seems to find any gathering of two or more wackos news, but ignores massive anti-war or pro-immigrant demonstrations. But isn’t this getting a little ridiculous. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that hundreds means that there were a thousand people at this demonstration. Probably a stretch. The present population of New York City, according to Wolfram, is 8,364,000.00 people with the metropolitan area containing about 19 million. That means this demonstration drew .011956001913% of the city’s population, which rounds off to zero. That in a city where it’s pretty easy to get around, and anyone really interested could have showed up. New London has a population of 26,184, which means a proportionally sized demonstration in the Day’s home town, if I have my math right, would have drawn three people. Why is this news?
For reasons unfathomable, our news organizations have come around to accepting that the racists among us are a downtrodden minority. If three or more of them gather, attention must be paid with understanding and respect. If today’s press had been covering Martin Luther King they would have devoted gallons of ink to the stress and strain to which those dog handlers were exposed in Birmingham, not to mention that the March on Washington would have been totally ignored.
This may sound like carping, but this phenomenon has real life implications. The media dances to the right wing tune, covering stories that at best are trivial, at worst are inflammatory, and always are diversions from the real problems we face.
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