Occufest, Part II: Spread the News

By Christopher Moylan

The contraction of Occupy Wall Street after the police stormed Liberty Square was to be expected, but with the return of longer days and warmer weather something peculiar happened. The movement remained in a dark chill while everyone else walked about in shorts and short sleeves complaining of the unnatural heat. Activists came back to the streets, the energy at demonstrations returned, yet little of this was reported in the news. For all anyone in the greater world knew, Occupy was dead.

To those who took part in the Million Hoodie March or the demonstration against police brutality, it was obvious that this media silence resulted from the collusion of forces more imposing than those of the editorial staff of Eyewitness News or, for that matter, The New York Times.  The police mobilizations at each protest were too large, the disruptions of traffic and business the protesters caused were too widespread and dramatic, the arrests too violent and arbitrary for all this to be too trivial for comment. If thousands marching down Fifth Avenue on a Tuesday evening rush hour could not draw attention, then what would it take?



Perhaps this is the wrong question. For one thing, it is obvious what it would take to grab the attention of corporate news: mass arrests, violence, smashed shop windows and burning cars. If Occupy activists allow the police and their corporate/political sponsors to write the narrative that would discredit the movement, then the narrative would receive plenty of attention. That could happen, but let’s hope it doesn’t.  So, isn’t this the question; if one could write an Occupy-related lead story for The Times, what would it say? Better yet, if it were possible to hold the attention of one disinterested person for a while—half an hour or an hour—what would one say? What would one hope to accomplish?

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