Media Blackout on Wall Street

The media has a social responsibility to the public to provide fair and unbiased coverage of current events. Interestingly enough, there is a large protest occurring right now on Wall Street that is barely getting covered by the media. A lot of police brutality is involved in this case which is likely a large reason for the media’s blind eye toward this situation.

Occupy Wall Street is a resistance movement based on the Arab Spring tactic in an attempt to restore democracy to America. The Arab Spring protest used civil resistance including strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies to get their point across in combination with the use of social media to organize, communicate and raise awareness of the demonstrations. Protesters hope to change social and economic inequality, corporate greed and the influence that corporations and lobbyists have over our government. Occupy Wall Street is supposed to be a peaceful protest in which citizens of America make a change that they feel it vital to our county.

For how peaceful the protesters have been, the police have reacted offensively. There have been multiple reports of brutality to protesters and police horses from the people who are supposed to be protecting our rights ad humans.

Twitter updates referencing the violence include:
- Ryan Devereaux, Democracy Now reporter: “They’re using the horses to push us back. People scream, ‘You’re gunna kill somebody!’ ‘There’s no room!’ They’re right!”
- Bill Buster, media relations specialist for the Occupy Wall Street movement: “#OWS Police are apparently preparing massive nets, possibly to kettle thousands of protesters in NYC.”
- Carol Falk, protester: “Arrests on Wall street. They are pepper spraying #ows #OccupyWallStreet remain peaceful.”

“Our nation, our species and our world are in crisis. The US has an important role to play in the situation, but we can no longer afford to let corporate greed and corrupt politics set the policies of our nation” states a press release from the leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Every aspect of this event is newsworthy, and yet the media seems to not think it significant. The hundreds of people arrested, many wrongly so, have stories to tell that no one will get to hear. The protest has been going on for a month and it remains known to few.

If the reason behind this media blackout is an attempt to hide the wrongdoings of our nation’s police agencies, then the media is acting highly unethical. There is obviously a lot involved in this story that people are unaware of and as it is the moral responsibility of the American media to provide citizens of our nation information they seem to be doing an awful job of it.



Written By: Danielle Ruckert