March

Sarcozona has noticed the lack of coverage of the climate change march by the mainstream press.

Not surprising – during the run-up to the second Iraq war, the massive demonstrations against that invasion involving millions of people all around the planet went nearly unreported.

These sorts of things, despite the climate march at least being partially co-opted by corporate interests, do not please our corporatacracy so reporters are not assigned to cover such actions. If implicitly anti-corporate and anti-government (these days the same thing) marches or demonstrations are reported at all, the reporters are likely instructed to minimize the story and the crowds present.

Not a formal conspiracy – just corporations looking out for their own interests and that of their sponsors.

CNN as sarcozona pointed out half-truthed their way into underestimating the crowd severely.

But it went beyond that, though. Let’s look at some images.

One image from a less-biased source giving an idea of the true scale of the crowd:

scale

Yeah, that’s a lof of people – you can’t even see the end of them.

Now let’s look at just one example of the images CNN used in the video at the top of this article:

cnn

Hey, I think I see a difference!

Note that all of the portrayals of the march in the CNN video consisted of these relatively-tight shots of sparse crowds, interspersed with on-the-street reporting. The example I’ve chosen is the widest shot of them all. There were NO wide-angle shots of any sort of the entire massive throng of people, which is highly unusual.

I was a US Army photojournalist for five years. My job wasn’t reporting the truth (though I think in total the journalism done in the Army was more truthful than that done by mainstream media) – my job was to report the truth that made the Army and its units look good.

So I know a little something about how to avoid lying in a story while still only telling the truth that those in charge want told.

What CNN has done is an absolutely textbook example of that. Nothing in the CNN story is a direct fabrication. “Tens of thousands of people” is not incompatible with 300,000+ people. In fact, 300,000 people is tens of thousands. But if you think that figure is usually employed that way, I’ve got some rocks painted gold that I’d like you to buy for actual gold prices. What CNN did is like saying, “The US contains hundreds of thousands of people.” Not wrong. Just bewilderingly shady.

Likewise, showing only medium and close shots of the crowd isn’t mendacious, just highly misleading.

It’s all a textbook example of how to not quite lie while utterly concealing the truth.

Update: This drone footage while fairly low-quality gives a pretty good idea of the number of people marching.