If the recent college protests have shown us anything (and in reality, they have shown us a lot), it is that our mainstream media is exceptional at producing propaganda. Some of the more liberal outlets, ones we would typically assume to sympathize with the college protests, have told lies that not only undermine the true objective of the protestors but even put their lives in danger.
Before going into detail on these lies and their effects, it is useful to contextualize this conversation with some of the more pivotal college protests regarding the Free Palestine movement. Two are of particular importance.
At Columbia University, hundreds of NYPD officers were called to descend upon the university last Tuesday after a number of students peacefully occupied an administrative building. The protestors undertook this task after the University escalated the situation by suspending anyone who remained in the Free Palestine encampment after 2 p.m. last Monday.
Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, counter-protestors decided to be the ones who would wreak havoc on the Free Palestine Encampment. Starting on the same Tuesday night, dozens, if not hundreds, of counter-protesters set off fireworks within the UCLA encampment, while singling out and assaulting stragglers with mace and sucker punches. They even used loudspeakers to blare the sounds of wailing babies.
Both of these particular events are important because of the amount of national media attention they garnered. In both cases, the media miserably failed, completely misrepresenting what unfolded while manufacturing a sentiment for their viewers that is not grounded in reality.
In the Columbia case, the most blatant lie being spread that night was that the protestors who took over “Hind’s Hall” were outside agitators. This was also a lie espoused by the Mayor of NYC as well as leadership at the school.
That night I was glued to WKCR, a student-run radio station at Columbia which was doing a phenomenal job reporting on the situation. After the police raided and arrested the occupiers, they reported a quite different story. The people occupying the building were Columbia students. They had figured this was the case throughout the night, but now their frustrations toward mainstream media outlets, particularly CNN, were backed by evidence.
This myth of outside agitators is important for a couple of reasons. For one, the myth discredits the work of student protestors. It adds a dimension of radicalization to the movement in the eyes of onlookers and creates a sense of fear among many as “outside agitator” means that whoever the people are, they are not invested in the Columbia community. It makes the occupiers “unpredictable” and “dangerous.”
Arguably, the greatest consequence of this myth is that it better justifies sending in militarized police to deal with the situation. Taking the previous point about the people being dangerous and unpredictable seriously means that cops must be the ones to deal with the situation. If these media companies were telling the public the occupiers were students, then sending in the NYPD with their guns drawn would seem ludicrous.
Furthermore, the cops truly did treat the situation as if the protestors weren’t students. In one video, two cops can be seen breaking a lock to a door, swiftly entering the room and pointing their handguns at every corner. An officer’s gun even went off inside the building. This is how a lie can potentially kill people, and media companies, as well as the president of Columbia, should be ashamed.
The coverage leading up to the UCLA situation is arguably just as appalling, but for different reasons. What happened that night was an assault on an encampment of peaceful protestors, and a primary cause of the assault pertains to a lie that almost every news outlet has been giving a platform to.
The lie being discussed is that the Free Palestine protests are anti-semitic in nature and are creating an environment that is violent toward Jewish people. CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are all perpetuating this lie.
One common theme is conflating “anti-zionism” with anti-semitism. Political Zionism is best defined as “the belief that the Jews should have a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland.” Being opposed to political Zionism is understanding that many cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds lay ancestral claim to the same areas as well. Anti-Zionists are advocating for a pluralistic worldview, not one that asks for an ethno-state.
Because of recent reporting on the protestor’s demands, this understanding of Anti-Zionism has been lost in translation. As a result, many of these outlets have also labeled the protestors as “pro-Hamas,” which is curious because some of these activists are Jewish themselves. In fact, the greatest threat toward Jewish students has been in the form of violence coming from police and counter-protests.
With the narratives being pushed, it is not surprising that counter-protestors responded the way that they did at UCLA. The narrative being pushed creates a sense of urgency for the opposite side who are also Jewish. Hearing that people on your college campus don’t value your life conjures up serious emotions, and professionals who are supposed to embody journalistic integrity should have seen this coming.
The reality is that media professionals have failed the public, especially college students and young people across the country. I urge everyone seeking accurate information on college events and protests to read and listen to student publications. Their reporting fills me with hope and makes me proud of my generation. Anchors and pundits have a lot of work to do, and a good start would be to take notes on these student journalists who seem to know more about the rules of reporting than they do.
