Since the Tories have got back into government, there has been an onslaught of protests and demonstrations against their various moves and proposals. Most significantly, the proposed changes to the tuition fees system. Since the coalition announced plans to raise the cap (currently at £3,290pa) to over £9,000, there has not been a day gone by where it has not made the papers. In my opinion, quite rightly. The Lib Dems lied. Nick Clegg, a PR man much like his senior in 10 Downing Street, chose one of the top jobs in the country over his party's promises and the interests of his voters. I can remember a statistic from the election coverage which claimed that 70% of Lib Dem voters would oppose a coalition with the Conservatives. Still, Clegg managed to put himself first and threw his morals down the well. Now, one of the main, solid policies that the Lib Dems used to get the 18-21 year olds' vote was defied by the man who had pledged to follow it in writing. Since, outrage has been rife.
It started with the main London protest; the march on Millbank Tower which resulted in a fire extinguisher being flung off a roof and a few windows being smashed. And that's all you ever heard about. Forget the thousands of protesters who sat back and behaved, peacefully but assertively protesting against deceit by the Deputy Prime Minister's party; there was some violence going on. There are three possibilities we can draw from this. The first is that the media covered the story in a way that satisfied the bloodlust most British people have. We're viewed as incredibly boring and stuck up by Johnny Foreigner, but there's nothing more we like to see than a fight. The second possibility is that the newspaper writers themselves felt that the story was boring: a load of students smashing shit up. Just go round King Street in Wigan on a Friday, it happens all the time there. Problem is, they're obliged to cover it. Or, it could be that the media outlets strongly opposed the protests altogether, and decided to depict every protester as an ignorant, stupid, extinguisher throwing thug. I would say the latter is the most likely story as most newspapers (The Sun, Telegraph, Mail, Express, Guardian, Times) backed either the Tories or the Lib Dems, and it would be rather hypocritical of them to cover a mini-revolution in an unbiased way when they themselves tried to convince the public to vote how they wanted them to. However, all three possibilities played a part in how the story was covered. Journalists want to sell papers, cover what they have to, and put a bit of opinion and spin in there. That's just the basic ingredients for a good article. God, even I admit to it. I want people to read this website, cover what matters (so it's interesting, by no means am I obliged to) and get my word in. It's just common sense when you're allowed to do it.
But if we zoom out, what does this tell us about how protests are received nowadays? The only truly impartial coverage of the Millbank Tower protests were the live pictures being fed onto BBC News as they were taking place, and even then, the hooligans smashing the windows were branded 'thugs' and 'idiots'. Now, I don't doubt for a second that the minority of protesters who decided it would be a good idea to smash down the front of the building were stupid, but the BBC hesitated to insist that these people were a minority. Not until they interviewed a chap from the NUS did we know that 90% of the people at the protest had no intention of causing criminal damage, and probably half of the people storming into the building and throwing chairs and tables over were not affiliated with the NUS in any way, nor were they even students. They were troublemakers who capitalised on being able to blend into a crowd.
Without the clashes, this story would've received very little coverage. Sure enough as I said before, the papers were somewhat obliged to cover it, but a little paragraph on page 4 would probably have been it in the broadsheets. As soon as they saw the chance to present the mostly peaceful protest as some angst filled rampage by a load of spotty kids, they jumped on it. I was reading the Mail the day after (it wasn't mine, I promise you), and all they decided to show was people kicking in windows. The headline read something like 'THUGS SMASH MILLBANK". Thugs did smash Millbank. But students protested against fees, and that's what's important. The actions of a few minor individuals who join in on what are nearly always peaceful protests manage to make the front pages by doing anything that is immoral. Pissing in the street, smashing a window, putting two fingers up to a policeman... with the sliminess of the papers and the stupidity of the majority of their readers, these little things can make a very meaningful event by thousands of people be personified by one man with his pants down running at a copper in riot gear, and all it takes is one headline in BIG BOLD LETTERS and a blurry picture.
Protests exist to get attention for a cause. To show how many people disagree or agree. There is no better way to get attention than through the media, but when the media is powerful and biased enough to make you look like Gandhi's following or Malcolm X's, everyone has to behave. And let's be honest, that's never going to happen. So the question still stands. Anyone can take a picture. That anyone can send it to a paper. They can write whatever they want. Facts go out the window. The readers decide what they want to decide. And when even our politicians are lying through their teeth constantly, what hope do the sensible, honest people have when they want to make a point?
