Speaker 1: Next week, we're going to start our new season, The
Speaker 1: Real Free Speech Threat, covering the growing criminalization of environmental
Speaker 1: protest around the world. It's our first big cross border series,
Speaker 1: and it will include dozens of stories both in the
Speaker 1: podcast and online. One thing we'll be looking at in
Speaker 1: that series is the media's role in enabling this trend.
Speaker 1: Before you can criminalize protest, you have to vilify the protesters,
Speaker 1: and to do that effectively, you need the media's help.
Speaker 1: Ivlando Cooper at Media Matters reviewed media coverage of climate
Speaker 1: protest in the US from May thirtieth, twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: to July thirty first, twenty twenty three for a new study.
Speaker 1: He documented a trend that we've been seeing too. Not
Speaker 1: only has the US media perpetuated the idea that climate
Speaker 1: protesters are uniquely disruptive and radical, but their general failure
Speaker 1: to cover anything about climate protest other than the disruption
Speaker 1: that they call further perpetuates this thinking. Ivlando's research found
Speaker 1: that while multiple national outlets have run stories about climate
Speaker 1: protesters being annoying and destructive, not a single broadcaster has
Speaker 1: run even one story on the fact that nearly half
Speaker 1: of the states in the US have now passed laws
Speaker 1: criminalizing protest. That fact is both shocking and worrisome. We're
Speaker 1: going to get into all of that and more with
Speaker 1: Avlando after this quick break. I am Westervelt and this
Speaker 1: is drilled. So I wanted to start by just asking
Speaker 1: you what prompted you to start looking at how media
Speaker 1: was covering climate activism.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I had been seeing these infrastructure laws, the
Speaker 2: Steady March, and state of the state of the criminalization
Speaker 2: of protest climate protests specifically, and so I wanted to
Speaker 2: see how the media was covering it. The problem was,
Speaker 2: we knew that the media wasn't covering specifically the criminalization
Speaker 2: of climate protests, and so seeing this kind of global
Speaker 2: surge and climate activism specifically around kind of provocative climate
Speaker 2: actions and civil disobedience, we thought that was a way
Speaker 2: that we could kind of get at understanding how media
Speaker 2: was covering climate protests generally and to see if they
Speaker 2: were adding some context to these protests.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I know that just purely anecdotally. Whenever I
Speaker 1: pitch a story that's related to protest, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a hard sell, you know, It's like, what's really happening?
Speaker 1: Is it new? Nobody wants to cover a particular action,
Speaker 1: because then it feels like you're just doing pr for
Speaker 1: the environmental organizations. What do you outlets when they do
Speaker 1: cover protests at all, What are the sorts of stories
Speaker 1: that you're seeing.
Speaker 2: So the vast majority of the stories were kind of
Speaker 2: dry recitals of what happened, you know, first, there still
Speaker 2: wasn't even that much coverage of I guess these more
Speaker 2: controversial climate actions, right, So we had to put that
Speaker 2: in context that I think a lot of these actions
Speaker 2: are designed for kind of social media of ability. But
Speaker 2: it's important for me to understand that, you know, social
Speaker 2: media is its own kind of activism. But I think
Speaker 2: there are also a lot of persuadables, older people, older
Speaker 2: voters who were trying to get on board with understanding
Speaker 2: the need for urgent climate action, who still get most
Speaker 2: of their news from mainstream sources. So that's why we
Speaker 2: wanted to kind of focus on the kind of traditional
Speaker 2: corporate news media environment. And but all you would see
Speaker 2: really is just a dry recital of, you know, a
Speaker 2: specific action. You didn't get any context about the urgency
Speaker 2: behind the action, why the people were protesting, And to me,
Speaker 2: it called to mind there have been a lot of
Speaker 2: really great justice movements that have employed controversial tactics, and
Speaker 2: their good faith disagreements within those movements themselves about which
Speaker 2: tactics to deploy. But I think a lot of those
Speaker 2: would have been much less successful if people didn't really
Speaker 2: understand why they were protesting in the first place. And
Speaker 2: so the media presenting these climate activists is disruptors, as nuisances,
Speaker 2: as knucklehead kids who don't really know what they're doing
Speaker 2: or why they're doing it. Paved the way for me
Speaker 2: which I think is a more dangerous trend, which is
Speaker 2: where you have an organization like Fox News, which covered
Speaker 2: the protests with way more than other mainstream news outlets,
Speaker 2: and their coverage was full of derision, climate denial, and
Speaker 2: mocking and even calls for violence against the protesters. So
Speaker 2: I think you have a mainstream news environment that when
Speaker 2: they cover these protests, they cover them is just the
Speaker 2: most basic kind of headline news rundowns these activists did
Speaker 2: this at this gallery, or they protested this sports event.
Speaker 2: There's no climate context, there's no context about the escalating
Speaker 2: criminalization of their protests, there's no context about the violence
Speaker 2: being directed at them. And then you have a network
Speaker 2: swooping in and filling that gap with These are bad
Speaker 2: people who are protesting a fake thing, and they deserve
Speaker 2: whatever they have coming to them.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting just how much the vacuum creates the
Speaker 3: ability to kind of do the Fox News style coverage
Speaker 3: and have it land too. But yeah, it's been very
Speaker 3: interesting to me to see how much the coverage focuses on,
Speaker 3: you know, how disruptive these kids are, and like, like
Speaker 3: even so, the example that is top of mind me
Speaker 3: right now is the recent New York Times piece where they.
Speaker 1: Talked about the Arn't protests and how they're costing museums money, right,
Speaker 1: and I like completely coincidentally, I happened to be interviewing
Speaker 1: Joanna Altman Smith the same day that that story came out, Right,
Speaker 1: so like, this is she's one of the people who
Speaker 1: protested at the National Gallery. They put water soluble kid's
Speaker 1: fingerpaint on the display case of a dagd statue in
Speaker 1: the National Gallery, so like, not an incredible amount of damage,
Speaker 1: very easy to clean up. You know, they read a
Speaker 1: manifesto and talked actually a lot about why they were
Speaker 1: doing this and whatnot. And she she told me she's
Speaker 1: like I spent hours, hours and hours talking to the
Speaker 1: reporter who wrote that piece about all of the reasons why,
Speaker 1: like it was worth the risk for us. And and
Speaker 1: by the way, this is someone who's facing a charge
Speaker 1: as a person who is conspiring against the United States. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's which is insane. She's facing ten years in jail
Speaker 1: and half a million dollars in fines for this action.
Speaker 1: She has had her passport taken, and none of that
Speaker 1: was in the story, Like it's there was nothing about
Speaker 1: the reason for the protest. There's nothing about the overwhelming
Speaker 1: weight of the charges compared to what the action itself
Speaker 1: actually cost. So anyway, it's just it's really interesting because
Speaker 1: I feel like that kind of framing really helps the
Speaker 1: criminalization of protests because it makes all of these protesters
Speaker 1: seem like annoying mosquitos, right, It's very dehumanizing. Was there
Speaker 1: anyone that you saw doing a good job of covering this,
Speaker 1: and like, did it tend to break down across sort
Speaker 1: of expected lines in terms of mainstream media versus smaller
Speaker 1: or more independent outlets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay, so on on the broadcast side. Note,
Speaker 2: I mean they didn't they didn't cour it enough for
Speaker 2: it to even be meaningful on cable not really either.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: It was with sparse coverage, and what it was was
Speaker 2: kind of, like you said, just a kind of dry recitation,
Speaker 2: no context. The newspapers provided a more nuanced picture. Washington
Speaker 2: Post published the most stories. And this is just looking
Speaker 2: at print, because I know there were some on like
Speaker 2: online specific articles that were really harsh against the client protesters,
Speaker 2: and there were someone that were that were really kind
Speaker 2: of wonderfully defensive of their actions. And you saw that
Speaker 2: kind of coexisting on the print side too, which to
Speaker 2: me is problematic because you're sending mixed messages to your
Speaker 2: to your readers. You know, I know you're trying to
Speaker 2: present a kind of broad outlook on this, but like
Speaker 2: you said, any any article that doesn't include the context
Speaker 2: about the scale of the protests versus the scale of
Speaker 2: the response, to me is not doing its job. So
Speaker 2: but you did have a more nuanced picture among the
Speaker 2: print outlets. The New York Times published one or two
Speaker 2: decent pieces, so I think the overall, I can't say though,
Speaker 2: that there were very many standouts because among print, any
Speaker 2: standouts were kind of negated by harsh, chastising or decontextualized
Speaker 2: articles that didn't present the whole picture. And I think
Speaker 2: part of what what angers me about this is that
Speaker 2: a lot of these papers, and especially on CAB when
Speaker 2: you see ANEMBC, present themselves as democracy defenders, right, But
Speaker 2: when it comes down to it, the people who are
Speaker 2: actually practicing democracy in the best tradition civil disobedience on
Speaker 2: behalf of a righteous cause, there these draconying responses to them,
Speaker 2: whether it's legally or through the police. You had a
Speaker 2: forest defender murdered in Atlanta for protesting police facility, and
Speaker 2: this doesn't get covered, it doesn't get contextualized. And so
Speaker 2: instead of being democracy defenders, while they're good on you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of right wing Trump stuff, they are completely
Speaker 2: falling down to me on the people who pose the
Speaker 2: biggest threat to with the system, which are climate activists,
Speaker 2: leftist protesters who are being demonized and humanized as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: and being criminalized, and this gets no attention in this
Speaker 2: corporate media sphere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you look at all at whether there was
Speaker 1: any difference in how publications covered different types of activism,
Speaker 1: whether there's any difference in how they cover a climate
Speaker 1: protest versus something that's more like general interest democracy kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I feel like I see a lot more
Speaker 1: annoyance with the climate protesters that I've seen with other
Speaker 1: types of protesters, and it's really interesting to me. I'm like,
Speaker 1: where is this coming from.
Speaker 2: So we don't have a data point for this, but
Speaker 2: I can definitely say that there is no small measure
Speaker 2: of respectability politics at play with regards to these specific protests,
Speaker 2: right because you know, they they cover Earth Day, right,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not well, it's not particularly great coverage,
Speaker 2: but Earth Day receives generally positive coverage, at least amongst
Speaker 2: the mainstream news. The youth climate protests for a few
Speaker 2: years ago, right, we're generally well received. You know, they're
Speaker 2: deemed to be you know, proper way of protesting, you know,
Speaker 2: marching in the streets, holding signs. When it comes to
Speaker 2: any anything slightly more subversive or direct, you do see
Speaker 2: a lot of this handing, specifically with regardless of climate.
Speaker 2: You know, you can argue that the BLM protests were disruptive,
Speaker 2: they were allowed, they were aggressive, and you know, they
Speaker 2: got their point across, but the media didn't cover them
Speaker 2: like they cover climate activists, right because rightfully so, criminal
Speaker 2: justice demand for criminal justice and racial justice are deemed
Speaker 2: to be worthy causes and their protests given more leeway
Speaker 2: and how they agitate for those causes. But something about
Speaker 2: climate or if it's not done, and it's a very
Speaker 2: specific way, it's very kind of old school style protests.
Speaker 2: Anything slightly provocative is really integrated, and it's viewed as illegitimate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we did this episode Mary and I
Speaker 3: when we were doing hot Take. We did this episode
Speaker 3: maybe like two or three years ago talking to Reverwood
Speaker 3: about how like, in the early days of the environmental movement,
Speaker 3: a lot of the environmental organizations were very specifically not
Speaker 3: wanting to engage.
Speaker 1: In either class struggle or racial equity, and part of
Speaker 1: why they had created this whole separate environmental thing was
Speaker 1: to be like, we're not engaging with that, you know.
Speaker 1: And now I feel like climate has become a broader
Speaker 1: movement and it has become more of a challenge to
Speaker 1: certain class and racial problems as well. And I wonder if, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it's just as simple as like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's a threat to capital.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's get to the core of it, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, the core of the of the problem is
Speaker 2: that the media, you know, despite you know, certain instances
Speaker 2: we're talking about broadcasts and cave of news right now,
Speaker 2: they're they're kind of they don't really do a great
Speaker 2: job on climate already. Right climate is not a top priority.
Speaker 2: It's not covered like it needs to be. It's not
Speaker 2: providing the context and substances it needs to be right
Speaker 2: outside of a few moments in a few instances. So
Speaker 2: already climate isn't taken seriously enough by these corporate news outlets.
Speaker 2: Then on top of it, you add climate driven protests,
Speaker 2: and then you add a climate during protest that are
Speaker 2: deemed disrespectful or illegitimate because of the form of protest.
Speaker 2: You know, you have this ready made recipe to either
Speaker 2: ignore or distort what the protests are. And then you
Speaker 2: add on the threat that they posed to vested interests
Speaker 2: like the FALSS fuel industry, because all of the demands
Speaker 2: are you know, immediately transition away from a false fuel
Speaker 2: economy in order to thwart climate change. You got to
Speaker 2: add that messaging in as well. I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: it's a perfect recipe for poor coverage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, have you gotten any sense in looking at all
Speaker 3: of the coverage that may be part of it too.
Speaker 1: Is the way that controversy sells. Having a bad guy
Speaker 1: always kind of you know, brings people into a story.
Speaker 1: There's just that kind of framing happening too, to make
Speaker 1: the story more interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, definitely on a I mean, that's that's the
Speaker 2: thing right on the Fox side, definitely. You know, however
Speaker 2: you feel about these protests, they are designing to get
Speaker 2: media attention, and they do get a lot of social
Speaker 2: media attention. I thought they would be getting a lot
Speaker 2: more attention on broadcasting cable news, but they didn't, which
Speaker 2: is why Fox saw a ready made villain for their
Speaker 2: audience and they seized it. You know, they seized that
Speaker 2: narrative and they hammered it home time and again what
Speaker 2: you got from the from mainstream corporate news was basically indifference. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which to me, you know, yeah, so it's weird. You
Speaker 2: have protests designed to write media attention and it got
Speaker 2: mostly indifference from the from the main from the mainstream
Speaker 2: media sources. But Fox definitely saw that narrative that you point,
Speaker 2: know of already made villain. I think you know you
Speaker 2: were talking about the weird tenor of the coverage mounted protests. Yeah,
Speaker 2: another weird thing for me, which I would have at
Speaker 2: least captured in some of the methodology, right, is, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the media is complete lack of concern for the surveillance
Speaker 2: capitalism state that is literally being built around us in
Speaker 2: the shadows, and you don't hear about it at all,
Speaker 2: and to me, more so to even protests, it's a
Speaker 2: direct threat to how journalists can do their job.
Speaker 1: Totally.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's really interesting, and I wanted to ask you
Speaker 3: too about the I know I've seen several stories in
Speaker 3: this vein and I'm curious if you saw this emerging
Speaker 3: as sort of a thread, But I do see coverage
Speaker 3: of like who's.
Speaker 1: Funding these activists, and not not just in the Fox
Speaker 1: News you know, Sorrows Checks kind of way, but like
Speaker 1: you know, the Near again, the New York Times, sorry
Speaker 1: New York Times, but they read they ran a story
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe two years ago where the focal
Speaker 1: point was that like a lot of the organizations that
Speaker 1: are funding activism, their money comes.
Speaker 3: From oil airs basically. But it was very much in
Speaker 3: this like Soros checks kind of framing, and again there
Speaker 3: wasn't much in there about why the individual people showing
Speaker 3: up to these actions felt compelled to be doing this work.
Speaker 3: And the idea that someone would be engaging in activism
Speaker 3: as their job is like really vilified in the media
Speaker 3: like that automatically means you're not credible, you're biased or whatever,
Speaker 3: like you're a paid actor, that kind of thing. And
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, I'm like, people have to
Speaker 3: eat and pay rent. I don't think it's terrible for
Speaker 3: someone to devote their life to something that they actually
Speaker 3: feel strongly about. You know, that's usually applauded in many
Speaker 3: areas of society. So yeah, I'm just I'm curious what
Speaker 3: you've seen on the coverage of the money side of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember reading that article, and they seem more
Speaker 2: upset that she was a class trader than you know,
Speaker 2: than anything, right. I mean, you know, I think transparency
Speaker 2: and funding of journalists can dig into that stuff and
Speaker 2: highlight it. I think an informous public discourse. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's very one sided because ALEC is pushing a lot
Speaker 2: of these infrastructure laws, and the false few industry is
Speaker 2: behind them. It's funding them to push these criminalization of protests,
Speaker 2: domestic terrorism, all this kind of draconian stuff. But you
Speaker 2: never hear about this industry who's being greenwashed in the
Speaker 2: mainstream media on the backhand pushing laws that would that
Speaker 2: literally undermine democratically protected protest. So yeah, yeah, if you
Speaker 2: want to cover the money trail, cover it for both sides,
Speaker 2: and I think you'll find much deeper pockets on a
Speaker 2: fossil fuel and then you will on a few rich
Speaker 2: progressives funding some climate activist groups.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I can't think of a single mainstream outlet that
Speaker 1: I've seen even cover the critical Infrastructure laws, which like
Speaker 1: seems like a pretty big deal. Post has covered it,
Speaker 1: The Intercept, Unicorn Riot, you know, these kinds of outlets.
Speaker 1: The Guardian has covered it. That seems like it would
Speaker 1: make for really good TV. That story.
Speaker 2: You know, I always think, like the generalists print and
Speaker 2: online during has worked so hard. These stories are already prepackaged, right,
Speaker 2: so building a news segment around it, to me doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like that big of a stretch because most of
Speaker 2: the work's been done, but you still don't see it.
Speaker 1: It's been very well documented that the fossil fuel industry
Speaker 1: funded that work. American fuel and petrol chemicals helped to
Speaker 1: write the legislation. I mean, it's literally it's all there
Speaker 1: in some.
Speaker 3: Ways, you know, like we're doing this series and some
Speaker 3: of the stories I'm kind of like, isn't that old news?
Speaker 1: But I'm like, well, it hasn't actually really broken through
Speaker 1: somehow to people that this is happening. And I also
Speaker 1: feel like, actually it has bipartisan appeal when I talk
Speaker 1: to people who are otherwise fairly right wing about and
Speaker 1: I don't even tell them that it's related to climate
Speaker 1: protest in particular. I just criminalization of protest. They're like,
Speaker 1: that's not right, you know what es should be happening,
Speaker 1: you know, So I don't. I don't know. It's very strange.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are people in my life who, you know,
Speaker 2: who I love, but who get their news primarily from
Speaker 2: kind of the main corporate They don't get much of
Speaker 2: their news from online news sources, independent news sources, and
Speaker 2: yeah they don't you know, every time I publish something
Speaker 2: or share something with them, they have no idea that
Speaker 2: this stuff is going on. Yeah, I mean, no idea.
Speaker 2: And to me that's a complete dereliction of duty.
Speaker 1: Yes, especially when you're talking about laws that criminalize sort
Speaker 1: of a key part of democracy in this way. I
Speaker 1: just it's really shocking that it's not everywhere. In general,
Speaker 1: I feel like the we just are so far away
Speaker 1: from the media kind of taking any responsibility for this stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess it wouldn't matter as much if
Speaker 2: so many voting age people still didn't primarily get their
Speaker 2: news from one of these mainstream news sources. And I
Speaker 2: think these are these are people that we need to
Speaker 2: reach in order to actually drive climate action, to put
Speaker 2: profession on politicians and policy makers, and you know, I
Speaker 2: think that's why it's so important. If they're not hearing
Speaker 2: about any of this stuff, Yeah, it's it's just only
Speaker 2: going to get worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is there anything that you've found in the study
Speaker 1: that we didn't talk about already that you want to
Speaker 1: make sure people know about.
Speaker 2: I think the media they think that if they mentioned
Speaker 2: climate change or connected to an extreme whether you're in
Speaker 2: you know, that is an improvement. But this is what
Speaker 2: should have been happening ten twenty years ago. What they
Speaker 2: don't understand is that they have to rapidly improve their
Speaker 2: coverage to catch up to where we are now. We're
Speaker 2: way past just mentioning climate change. I mean, like you
Speaker 2: mentioned climate I mean, thank you for doing it again.
Speaker 2: Keep doing it, Yes, but you have to like rapidly
Speaker 2: scale up the quality of your courage and I just don't.
Speaker 2: I think they're still caught up in well, we were
Speaker 2: mentioned in climate, we're saying extreme weather. But we're way
Speaker 2: past that and they need to really and the more people,
Speaker 2: more groups can agitate for that kind of rapid improvement, yes,
Speaker 2: shame shame them, I think the better