Dear Mr. Daniel Okrent:
I would like to call your attention to the disparity between the New York Times' treatments of protesters on the right and the left.
On March 19, 2005, according to United for Peace and Justice (a national anti-war coalition whose homepage is <http://www.unitedforpeace.org/>), 765 actions to End the Iraq War and Bring the Troops Home took place nationwide. But on March 20, the front page of the New York Times was silent on the nationwide protests. Instead, it (in the national edition) included the lead paragraphs of an article "Protesters at Hospice in Florida Push Showdown over Schiavo" by Abby Goodnough. Robert D. McFadden's article "Hundreds of Rallies Held across U.S. to Protest Iraq War" (so titled in LexisNexis), however, was buried in page 35. Worse yet, the same article was, on the web, given a more trivializing title: "Two Years after Iraq Invasion, Protesters Hold Small Rallies."
Why the prominence given to protesters in the Schiavo case? Is it because the public supports conservative protesters who prayed outside the hospice (Goodnough, March 20, 2005)?
Not at all. The public "supports the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube" by a wide margin (63%-28%), according to an ABC poll (available at <http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=599622&page=1>). In contrast, the demands of anti-war demonstrators give voice to the view quietly held by a majority of Americans, reflected, for instance, in a recent Harris poll: 59% of Americans favor bringing the U.S. troops home "next year," a much larger proportion than 39% who would keep the troops in Iraq "until there is a stable government there" ("The Harris Poll. Feb. 8-13, 2005" [N=1,012 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.], Pollingreport.com, <http://pollingreport.com/iraq2.htm>).
However marginal and at odds with the public opinion they may be, protesters for a right-wing cause, helped by right-wing lawmakers, land on the front page of the New York Times. Protesters for a left-wing cause, however popular and important the cause may be, are confined to the back of the symbolic bus. That may be the priority of the White House and Congress, but it ill serves the American public. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>