random rants and references

This post is about an innovative new media experiment in citizen journalism that "scooped" the major media (the NY Times) on a key facet of a big story. Perhaps "scooped" is not quite the right term; perhaps it really just uncovered the facts being hidden by the Times.

It all started at Power Line Blog: "As an exercise in citizen journalism, we put out a call to readers to attend yesterday's demonstrations in support of illegal immigration, film them, and send us the resulting video. We didn't know what to expect, but the results were gratifying. We got lots of submissions, both of video and photographs. As a result, we've put together a Power Line Video of yesterday's rallies, from Seattle to Washington, D.C., which you can watch here.
We intended this as an experiment to see whether this type of citizen journalism can work; our conclusion is that it certainly can."

What can we learn from the citizen jounalists' video reports? Watch them at PowerLineNews on the April 10 Demonstration video and check the ANSWER- Infiltrated video (actually just audio). Or consider the Power Line conclusions :

What conclusions do I draw from the materials we received? You can judge for yourself, but I would make two broad observations. First, notwithstanding mainstream media accounts that portray the turnout as vast, most of the rallies struck me as of modest size. The flagship demonstrations were pretty big; most of the others looked small to me.

Second, despite the blowback against the display of Mexican flags two weeks ago, and the distribution of American flags by leaders of some of the demonstrations, many of the demonstrators are still defiant about carrying the flags of Mexico and other Latin American countries and displaying radical slogans and images, thereby undercutting the "all-American" image of the rallies that most of the mainstream media worked hard to present."

So what's the big scoop? "The Times covers the demonstration that took place in the paper's own city here. Again, the paper's coverage is entirely positive, although it implicitly acknowledges that turnout in New York was disappointing. The Times notes the presence of Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, who addressed the rally, but it makes no comment at all on who organized the demonstration.
In fact, as our video shows, the New York demonstration (like those in some other cities) was organized and controlled in substantial part by International A.N.S.W.E.R., the Communist organization that we have written about many times, most recently here. A.N.S.W.E.R.'s National Coordinator, Brian Becker, was prominent at the New York rally; he is the man in the blue shirt on the right in the photo (above, click to enlarge).

Note A.N.S.W.E.R.'s large "amnesty" banner with the words "Full Rights For All Immigrants!" as well as the Che Guevara banner.

International A.N.S.W.E.R. passed out thousands of mass-produced, yellow and black signs with exactly the same message. You can see them prominently displayed in our video footage from New York. Here, though, is what I think is even more interesting. At either of the two New York Times pages linked above, you can also link to the Times' own video of the New York demonstration. Take a look at it. Look at the sea of yellow and black, International A.N.S.W.E.R. signs. They vastly outnumber all other signs and banners. They are the dominant visual image of the New York demonstration. "

I'd add that the videos show a lot of marchers attired in new white shirts with black messages imprinted as well as all those black&yellow signs. This was a very well funded and organized affair by some groups that have a strong agenda that is not very friendly to most Americans. Checking the links to them will reveal pro-Palestinian (anti-Semitic) organizations. Listening to the Video/Audio from the A.N.S.W.E.R meeting makes it clear that these folks are using the immigration issue as a springboard for more and larger social upset and, in their own words, "radicalization" and "revolution". Not exactly the friendly pro-immigrant message they are trying to use as cover.

That's a real story in these times - but not in the NY Times.