It’s a campaign called “Occupy Wall Street” and thousands of ordinary Americans have shown up to protest America’s greedy and fraudulent financial system. Why are they doing it? They are protesting because Wall Street caused a global recession that resulted in millions of lost jobs and made millions of people significantly poorer. And while Americans continue to suffer, Wall Street has reaped in larger profits and has gone unpunished. So that leaves one last question? Where’s the media coverage?

The protests began on September 18th, and other than a few bloggers and snide comments from conservatives on Twitter and elsewhere, the mainstream media has largely ignored the protests. Why is the media ignoring the protests on Wall Street? The mainstream media is owned by conservative leaning corporations. Comcast owns MSNBC. Newscorp owns Fox News. CBS is headed by Sumner Redstone, who supported Bush in 2004. CNN has been catering to the right-wing for years now. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that these media giants have orchestrated a media blackout of general protests that are against them. People are angry at corporations and the big banks who have only seen their profits and wealth rise while millions of Americans fall into poverty. It’s completely understandable that people would want to protest Wall Street.

But the media is clearly biased against the Wall Street protesters. And they are failing to uphold the principle of a free and independent press. The media is perfectly willing to cover protests when the protesters are backed by corporate America and they are willing to cover protests in foreign nations. But they refuse to cover the protests on Wall Street simply because the people are protesting against corporate power and irresponsibility. The protesters on Wall Street have every right to get the same amount of coverage that the media gave to the Tea Party when they protested in 2009. The media reported on virtually every single Tea Party gathering throughout 2009 and 2010, even if only a few people showed up. They gave major national coverage to a right-wing extremist group, and propelled them to the role they play today. Because of the intense media coverage, the Tea Party was given a platform to spread their deadly and dangerous ideas. Apparently, the media does not want the Wall Street protesters to have a platform. They would rather not show the American people how angry people are at the Wall Street sponsors of conservatism and Tea Party extremism. Americans are rising up against the money powers and Wall Street hopes that the media blackout will make it go away like it never happened. Let’s make an effort to support our fellow citizens in their protests and pressure the media to cover this event in full. Only then will the media become the “free press” once more.

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Written by: Stephen D. Foster Jr. on September 21, 2011.
Last revised by: Matthew Desmond, our reviewer, on September 27, 2011.