| Thought it might be useful to take a look at how the local dead tree media are playing what went down yesterday.
And I have a question for the NYC media this morning. After week when Mike Bloomberg basically spat directly in your collective face, after he blocked you from actually doing your jobs by trying to hide the work he was doing in the public's name from you and after he arrested a good number of your members in the line of duty...how do Bloomberg's boots taste this morning?
As someone who consumes an unhealthy amount of NY/NYC media everyday, even I'm kind of blown away by the tone of this morning's coverage. I mean, I expect semi literate, semi coherent hippie bashing from the New York Post. That's what they do. They've never made a dime doing it, but the Post isn't a business so much as a mouthpiece. The Daily News isn't all that much better in that context, but it's usually a damn sight better than this.
The legacy media of NYC should really hang their head in shame this morning.
Looks like the takeaways from the morning papers are essentially:
1. Blood
2. Hippies vs Harhats
3. OWS is a menace to the entire city, is sad, inconsequential
4. OWS is over, Bloomberg victorious
While the Post goes with celebrity breakups on their FP, the Daily News goes the "bleeds/leads" route.
NYDN's coverage is all over the place, but let's start with Hippies vs Hardhats; Also, pointless:
Occupy Wall Street holds Day of Disruption, but only for the 99%
New York snarled by pointless temper tantrum
Occupy Wall Street protesters and police scuffle in Zuccotti Park on Thursday.
Here's what the Occupy Wall Street bunch accomplished Thursday by having a conniption in lower Manhattan:
They showed just how pointlessly obnoxious they could be.
The occasion was a Day of Disruption, in which the self-anointed representatives of the 99% flocked downtown en masse, presumably to throw wrenches into the gears of the financial sector, thereby damaging an economy that has left many jobless.
Whatever. No one expects clear thinking from tots throwing tantrums.
Two months after the birth of the movement, days after they lost the Zuccotti Park encampment, some in the revealingly small band declared: "Resist austerity. Rebuild the economy. Reclaim our democracy."
But the takeaway was:
"Aggravate workers. Snarl streets. Injure cops. Hammer taxpayers."
Up next: Hippies go home ( with the bonus of opinions from "experts!")
With expulsion from Zuccotti Park and numbers dwindling, Occupy Wall Street movement looks old
Experts think protesters should take their show on the road
Mitchell Moss, NYU professor of urban policy and planning, said it's time for the protesters to take their show on the road.
"At this point, I think they should quickly migrate to the Washington Monument," he said. "There's ample space, and close proximity to the decision makers.
"That should be the next stop on their magical mystery tour."
....
"New Yorkers are a work-oriented people, and there is only a limited amount of patience with people who want to disrupt the city," he said.
....
"This isn't a movement. It's a fad."
Also check out "Scary Bloody Guy Is Scary, Bloody"
Protester Brandon Watts, who was first to pitch a tent at Zuccotti Park, is now the bloody face of 'Day of Action'
as well as "Bloomberg Wins."
Mayor Bloomberg declares victory against Occupy Wall Street as thousands swarm lower Manhattan in all-day rallies
The Post goes full on "Hippies vas Hardhats: Nightmare Commute Edition."
OWS protests disrupt New Yorkers' daily routines
"These guys should be arrested!" yelled Jeff Davis, as he tried to elbow his way through the crowd at East Fifth Street and Broadway on his way home from work to Staten Island.
"This is unbelievable!" he said when he realized his M5 bus - which connects him to the ferry - wouldn't arrive any time soon.
Working stiffs at quitting time were confronted with walls of people that rivaled Times Square on New Year's Eve - disrupting commuters on foot, headed for commuter rail and riding in cars.
Lower Manhattan took the brunt of the protest pain, with massive demonstrations in the morning and evening making even a simple trip across the street completely hellish.
One of the worst streets was Broadway, a protest route that stretched from the bottom of Manhattan all the way north to Union Square.
"I'm trying to get to class!" fumed Gillian Enteman as she headed uptown to school.
She felt it necessary to add: "Class that I pay for!"
Also, OWS is fucking lame, lamers:
Loud, but lame
As apocalyptic acts of public protest go, yesterday's Occupy Wall Street act-out was a bit of a piffle.
There was the promise to shut down Wall Street. Didn't happen.
There was an effort to disrupt subway service. Didn't happen.
And there were to be acts of "massive" civil disobedience at Foley Square and the Brooklyn Bridge. Didn't happen, either.
To be sure, Foley Square was full to overflowing by 5 p.m. - hardly surprising, when it's surrounded by government office buildings and the public-employee unions have been an Occupy mainstay from the outset two months ago.
Which is ironic, given that government employees in New York enjoy health-care and pension benefits that even millionaires might envy - and that surely elude the reach of the vast majority of 99-percenters.
But, in the end, Occupy Wall Street's Day of Action turned out to be all talk.
The rhetoric was rabid, sure.
But there were nowhere near the "tens of thousands" of demonstrators who were supposed to fan out across the five boroughs and convulse New York.
"Some of the demonstrators deliberately pursued violence," Mayor Bloomberg said. "That's behavior that has nothing to do with the First Amendment."
Thus there were arrests - 177 by sunset, including five for assault.
But the "real story," Bloomberg asserted, "is that not that many people are here."
Except, at the end, for the union members.
As rush hour approached, contingents from a number of unions - including the SEIU health-care union, the UFT and DC37 - participated in a largely peaceful march across the Brooklyn Bridge.
But not before a gaggle of the usual suspects went through the ritual-arrest process, and an embarrassing number of elected officials prostrated themselves before their union masters.
So what happened to the "revolution"?
Well, it was wet and very chilly yesterday; bad weather always puts a damper on uninformed outrage.
Monday night's cleansing of Zuccotti Park has clearly diminished the movement's critical mass.
But maybe that "movement" was more illusion than reality all along.
At the end, there were more vagrants, criminals and nut-jobs than protesters at Zuccotti Park.
Apart from self-aggrandizing union poobahs pushing their own agendas, there has been little coherence in any of the protesters' "demands" - just resentment, envy and entitlement.
Yesterday doubtless could have ended differently, of course. Credit the professionalism and patience of the NYPD for seeing to it that it didn't.
Bottom line, though: It seems that Occupy Wall Street has passed its sell-by date - and even the Occupiers know it.
And they saved some column space for Podhoretz to call OWS a bunch of fucking babies. No, really. It's right there in the hed:
Rally is really a tantrum by decry babies
Also, don't miss "Class Traitor Is Horrible Mom"
Runaway mom dreadlocked up
and "Scary Bloody Guy Redux"
Ready riot cops whack back at OWS hooligans
And the Times put their coverage front and center...on page A24. So, ya know, fuck them.
And don't think the dead trees were the only ones marching in this bootlicking Fail Parade. Check out this shot from CBS 2:
"Hundreds!"
Good morning, everybody. |
