Current Events Blog 9/27

One story that I have noticed is receiving little if no coverage of the last week is the protesting of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh. An example of the incomplete coverage can be found in an article posted on The New York Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/world/27protest.html. In this article, published 9/26/09, Colin Moynihan focuses on three distinct sets of protests. The first that he discusses occurred Friday night after the closing of the summit. 110 people were arrested during this protest and the writer calls it an "angry" "disturbance." While Moynihan does interview some of the protesters, especially in regards to the way they were treated by the police, he does not indicate why they were protesting. The glaring omission also hinders his reporting of the march that took place on Friday and the protests from Thursday. Although he highlights that some protesters ignited a dumpster (creating a very vivid picture for the reader), he doesn't account for the majority of protesters who were peaceful nor does he give voice to their concerns. The only time Moynihan comes close to discussing why the protesters were at the G20 Summit was in discussing the myriad of organized groups (like Code Pink and Iraq Veterans against the War) and their individual causes. But what he leaves out, and I think this is crucial and indicates a bias in the reporting, is what exactly G20 does and why these groups feel that the summit is not addressing their concerns. So, while I appreciate that The New York Times at least reported on this story, I am disappointed that the paper treated the protests as a separate entity from the G20 Summit. After all, there is a reason (whether we agree with it or not) that thousands chose to protest this event. Unbiased journalism would have allowed for a full account of not only the protests and the police's reaction to them, but also to the connection between the protests and the topics of the Summit.