New York Times business writer Andrew Ross Sorkin has been criticized for being too chummy with the Wall Street tycoons he’s supposed to be covering. Today he has a piece in the Times (10/4/11) about Occupy Wall Street–which he’s decided to check out because it’s beginning to make some CEOs nervous:
I had gone down to Zuccotti Park to see the activist movement firsthand after getting a call from the chief executive of a major bank last week, before nearly 700 people were arrested over the weekend during a demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge.
‘Is this Occupy Wall Street thing a big deal?” the CEO asked me. I didn’t have an answer. “We’re trying to figure out how much we should be worried about all of this,” he continued, clearly concerned. “Is this going to turn into a personal safety problem?”
As I wandered around the park, it was clear to me that most bankers probably don’t have to worry about being in imminent personal danger. This didn’t seem like a brutal group–at least not yet.
Ah, the protesters aren’t brutal–yet.
He goes on:
But the underlying message of Occupy Wall Street–which spread to Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles on Monday–is something the big banks and corporate America may finally have to grapple with before it actually does become dangerous.
What’s the message?
At times it can be hard to discern, but, at least to me, the message was clear: The demonstrators are seeking accountability for Wall Street and corporate America for the financial crisis and the growing economic inequality gap.
And that message is a warning shot about the kind of civil unrest that may emerge–as we’ve seen in some European countries–if our economy continues to struggle.
To give Sorkin credit, he does seem to have summarized the message of the protest movement accurately. The fact that he does so in the service of telling a CEO whether or not he should be worried about a popular uprising–well, that says a lot about the function of business journalism, doesn’t it?
Wow, that’s brilliant.
Why am I flashing on the old RCA Victor logo with the dog and the gramophone?
I’d also give Sorkin credit for sharing that it was the CEO’s concern that prompted his visit to the protest. Occupy Wall Street will not be considered appropriate for Business sections in the media until it has an effect on businesses.
“…The growth of this movement is generating mounting concern within American ruling circles. This was expressed Tuesday in an article by New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, who quoted a Wall Street CEO worried about his â┚¬Ã…“personal safetyâ┚¬Ã‚ and warned that the protest constituted â┚¬Ã…“a warning shot about the kind of civil unrest that may emergeâ┚¬”Âas we’ve seen in some European countriesâ┚¬”Âif our economy continues to struggle.â┚¬Ã‚Â
“It is not the bankers who have to fear for their personal safety, but the demonstrators, who have been subjected repeatedly to police brutality and mass arrests for exercising their free speech rights…”
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/oct2011/pers-o05.shtml
Were it not for FAIR, the media might still be ignoring the Occupy Wall Street movement, but its latest choice of New York Times reporters to criticize could have been better. as FAIR notes, Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 10/4/11 piece was the first recognition by the Times that the protest has a message, A far better target, then, would have been the four Times staffers, Al Baker, Joseph Goldstein, Rob Harris and Colin Moynihan, whose story entitled â┚¬Ã…“Officer’s Pepper-Spraying of Protesters Is Under Investigationâ┚¬Ã‚ appears in the September 29 issue.
First Raymond W. Kelly, commissioner of the New York Police Department, criticizes the protesters for â┚¬Ã…“tumultuous conduct.â┚¬Ã‚ Then Deputy Inspector Roy T. Richter, the head of the Captains Endowment Association, assures NYT readers that the â┚¬Ã…“limited use of pepper spray effectively restored order without any escalation of force or serious injury to either demonstrator or police officer.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Pepper spray does not restore order; it causes panic. And neither tumultuous conduct nor disorder has been reported on the September 28 demonstration in lower Manhattan by the Times or any other major news source, nor can it be inferred from any of the published photos and videos of the event.
The Times’s four blind mice continue. A law enforcement official â┚¬Ã…“familiar with Inspector Bologna’s account of what occurredâ┚¬Ã‚ claims he was not aiming at the four women who appeared in videos to have sustained the brunt of the spray. â┚¬Ã…“Rather, he was trying to spray some men who he believed were pushing up against officers and causing a confrontation that put officers at risk of injury. The intention was to place them under arrest, but they fled.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Here we have anonymous hearsay evidence that police armed with sticks, guns and pepper spray, who were in close body contact with unarmed demonstrators, pepper sprayed them in order to arrest them.
The reporters chose not to report opinions, not even hearsay opinions, to refute the absurd fantasy that a police deputy inspector with specialized training and long experience in crowd control pepper sprays specific individuals at point blank range in a dense crowd in order to arrest them, yet he misses, and they get away.
What two videos of the event â┚¬Ã…“appear to show,â┚¬Ã‚ as the Times photo caption put it, is an aging, out of shape police officer pepper spraying women for the sheer fun of it and sneaking off into a crowd.
I actually think it’s important for us to know that CEO’s are concerned about OWS. That way we can tell that the movement is having an impact on the 1%.
I certainly agree that more sympathetic coverage would be good, too. But I’m happy to see that after only a couple of weeks, the movement is beginning to have an effect on those at the top.
Those CEO’s were laughing from their Wall Street balcony’s a week ago sipping champagne! Now at least we know some of them are worried. They ought to be, because the police (and Bloomberg) are locking up people for exercising their first amendment rights when they should be locking up those Wall Street crooks! There is where the cops ought to be, investigating the crap out of these shyster bankers. People are on the streets because these same crooks got bailed out and got enormous tax breaks while most of us got the shaft! They ought to look beyond this movement and realize the bulk of the American people are as mad as hell at these corporate bums and the political bums they own. Also, if they decide to hurt our kids out there, they can rest assured there will be hell to pay!
“What is robbing a bank compared to owning a bank!”
– Bertolt Brecht, Threepenny opera
How quaint that the CEO is concerned about HIS personal safety, but has not one WHIT of concern for the MILLIONS of lives ruined by the machinations of the ruling elite.
The safest way to rob a bank is to own one.
“How quaint that the CEO is concerned about HIS personal safety, but has not one WHIT of concern for the MILLIONS of lives ruined by the machinations of the ruling elite.” Well said Mr. Siegel! One of the (many) reasons I have joined the movement with Occupy San Diego is that in June alone there were 5 family murders that ended with the dad committing suicide. The murder/suicides taking place here often end with the torching of the foreclosed home…a funeral pyre for the middle class. This is probably happening all over the US, but it is seldom nationally reported. This means, in essence that these bankers are responsible for murder. Yet another reason they should be in jail, not the citizens of the US exercising their Constitutional rights.
Bonnie bonnie bonnie.Can you not understand that all this is being planted and fed by the real scalawags?Obama and his ilk?You are being manipulated love.When will you on the left stop pushing this class war fare?It does not fit America at all.Even the above explanation sounds ridiculous in trying to enlighten us toward the reasons for these gatherings.Why not just stamp up and down and say….. They have more than me.I want what they have.They MUST of stolen it.Give it up- or we will take it.Children anarchists.Dangerous in the stupidity they are buying into.This is the sort of stupidity that becomes mob mentality.Two years ago in meeting with some “tea party friends” we discussed how Obama would ever be able to win another term as it was so obvious that his policies would cripple the economy.We could easily see that there would be no recovery with him at the helm.One man ,a prominent talk show host blurted out- class war fare.He said as Obama was willing to throw the race card at the drop of the hat in the election cycle,so he will be willing to enflame class warfare as a last ditch effort.So here we are…Nice ta meet ya Bonnie.We were expecting you all along.How sad
Yes Michel e, as a banker’s apologist, you do well. “Obama and his ilk”, “you on the left”, “children anarchists”. You have all the catch phrases down.
When will you take the time to really understand at a level deeper than jingoism?