Opinion by Kevin Limiti
Why do we cover protests? People have them
Protests, demonstrations, angry people yelling about something or other. What does it all mean? Why does something like that happen?
I’ve been covering protests for almost 10 years. Protests were my vehicle for getting into journalism. In Occupy Wall Street, I was a protester, and then made the decision to be a journalist instead.
Why? I didn’t like the coverage.
Since then, I’ve covered Black Lives Matter protests in downtown Brooklyn, Palestinian protesters in Times Square and Trump supporters at Trump Tower.
I’ve seen young kids beaten with night sticks, I’ve been threatened with arrest. I’ve actually been arrested and I’ve been chased out of a public park by people who I would otherwise have supported politically.
The job of a reporter is not to determine whether a protest is good or bad or whether those protesting are decent people or terrible people. Protests are defined by their message and the actions taken and put across as a means to achieving their political aspirations.
Recently, I covered the anti-vaccine protests in Oneonta and Cooperstown. In no sense am I anti-vaccine. My grandfather died of COVID and the toll of the virus has affected my family like so many others. To me, a vaccine is simply common sense.
And yet, the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers has stirred up a feeling of resentment and anger towards elected officials.
Do I agree with them? No. Do they deserve fair coverage? Yes.
And what is fair coverage? It means not judging them by appearances, a perceived lack of intellect, whether a couple of them did say or did something you didn’t like or anything else for that matter. Most importantly, it’s about keeping your personal feelings tucked away somewhere and allowing people to use their voice.
The only job I have as a reporter is to literally report what happened, what was said and let the public make a decision for themselves whether it was a good protest or a bad protest.
Violence often overshadows otherwise peaceful protests, and it happens all the time. The protests that happened as a result of George Floyd’s death are a perfect example of this. When rioting happened, that became the focus. It shouldn’t and it can’t, but it’s also a fitting window into how violence can destroy a movement.
But what those protests showed was that the idea of Black people living without fear of violence or retribution by the police was an example of an idea whose time had simply come, and it was way past overdue. Even the violence couldn’t overshadow the essential message of that. But what we don’t want are crazy extremists from any side of the political spectrum hijacking and distorting the base wishes of the sane majority of people who don’t want to see violence and simply want to start a conversation.
Protesting is an important part of being American. It may even be necessary. If you listen to an angry man with a sign and you are reporting on how he looks and smells but not what he’s saying, you’re doing it wrong as a journalist.
Of course, that man might be talking about UFOs or conspiracy theories, but he is constitutionally allowed the opinion that aliens will eventually overwhelm our meager earth defenses and make us all mate and watch re-runs of “I Love Lucy.”
The decision on whether or not to write an article about him is up to the journalist’s discretion. If you tell us aliens are indeed out there, we might not cover it, but if you decide to physically occupy a space and stay there until the aliens come, we will probably cover it. Just don’t expect the coverage to necessarily reflect your warped reality.