We know the San Diego U-T is working hard to balance its coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests here in town. Today, the print edition had a very nice spread about seven of the activists from Occupy San Diego. Thanks to Matt Hall.
But did anyone else notice that today’s U-T covered protests against banks in Oakland and Los Angeles but didn’t speak hardly a word about similar actions right here in downtown San Diego?
Sure, right there on page A20, there is an Associated Press article entitled “Protesters Close Down Oakland Bank“, and describes how activists in Oakland, other parts of the Bay Area, and in Los Angeles marched and rallied around banks as part of immigration protests and Bank Transfer Day.
“More than 100 protesters marched a block from the Occupy Oakland encampment to the bank branch Saturday morning.”
Down the article it states:
“In Los Angeles, several hundred protesters marched through downtown’s financial district to protest the banking industry as part of “Bank Transfer Day,” a grass-roots movement that has been championed by the nation’s Occupy Wall Street protests.”
Okay, all well and done.
But what about what happened in San Diego on Saturday?
We had nearly 300 protesters – more than Oakland – and we marched way more than “a block” from the Occupy site to the bank branch on Saturday. So, who are we? chopped liver?
And just as in LA, several hundred of us marched through our downtown district and we were also protesting the banking industry as part of the Bank Transfer Day.
Why is there no coverage of what occurred right under the U-T‘s nose but the U-T ran an AP story about similar stories in other cities? Is it because there are no reporters on duty during the weekend?
This has happened before, where on a weekend, there is a major political event, but no U-T coverage. (Think end of February earlier this year at the County Admin – huge labor rally but on Saturday – and not one word or photo from the U-T.)
We know the U-T editorial staff thinks about Occupy San Diego because today’s editorial cartoon made fun of it – and made fun of Congressman and mayoral candidate Bob Filner (the only Democrat and the only liberal in the race, so the U-T must make fun of him).
[Editor: By Sunday evening, the online version of the U-T, SignOnSanDiego still did not have Steve Breen’s cartoon of Filner and OccupySd, so we need to describe it: it shows a guy who looks an awful lot like Bob Filner sitting cross-legged on the street smoking reefer. Two cops are off to the side in the background discussing the guy. The first one asks: “Occupy San Diego protester?” and the other cop answers, “No, Bob Filner.” Breen and the U-T are partially making fun of Filner because just the other day, Filner and other Congressional reps called on President Obama to make medical marijuana legitimate.]
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This is a real head scratcher. Reports about Occupy San Diego such as Matt Hall’s provide a nuanced approach that I frankly did not expect. I have come to believe that the U-T is simply too cheap to pay reporters to cover stories on the weekend. Pulling info off of AP is probably a cost cutting no-brainer.
The reason that there so little coverage is that they got their fifteen minutes of fame, the protest has run its course and is now harming the cause more than helping it. It doesn’t make any more sense than chaining yourself to a tree to stop a bulldozer.
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