Yes…and depending on the political interest, the media will cover it.
Mike has an excellent post today on a protest against TennCare cuts. It was one of those protests that drew only a handful of people, yet the tv stations send a crew and cover it.
Mike asks if the media makes an effort to cover protests even if only a few people are protesting. The answer of course, is yes.
Several years ago when I was still pounding the pavement for one of the local stations I was assigned a story on a war protest in downtown Memphis. I got there, it was raining slightly and my photographer and I COULDN’T FIND THE PROTESTERS!
They weren’t where they were supposed to be, or at least they hadn’t shown up on time. We called the station to make sure the assignment desk had read the press release correctly. While we were sitting in the mobile newsroom, a woman knocked on my window and said “if you’re here to cover the protest we’ll get ready”.
The made-for-tv-protesters, all 4 of them, grabbed their home-made signs and started shouting about President Bush and the war.
The story ran. I don’t remember but I may have done a live-shot out there. It was probably first block. The disappointing part of the story? A few days later there was a rather large “Support our Military” rally that attracted several hundred people and was well organized. The rally received about the same amount of time as the “war protest”.
The fact remains that you covered both sides of the story. That’s fair. I expect it was easy to see in the video how hundreds compare to a handful of protestors. Let the viewer make up his/her own mind.
Off Topic, but while I was on vacation I saw a t-shirt that said something like,
‘If a man says something in the forest and no one is there to hear him, Is he still wrong?’
This was a woman’s store…My wife says yes.