This Demonstration Classified "Eyes Only"

I can't improve upon this opener by Meryl Yourish, so I won't try:

Can you find a news source for the rally against Ahmadinejad at the UN yesterday? Correction: Can you find a non-Jewish media source, or a non-blogger source, for the rally?

I can’t. Except for the New York Sun.

I checked AP. Nothing. Reuters. Nada. I checked Google News. Nothing. 1010WINS. Nothing. I checked WABC, NY1, all the New York media sites. Gridlock alerts are the only thing you can find about the march. After all, it’s not newsworthy...

The demonstration she's talking about--oh, you haven't heard about it either--drew "tens of thousands," and up to 35,000 according to various descriptions I've been able to find, not in the Washington Post because like the rest of MSM it deemed it unworthy. And you know, much of the time you can find something in washingtonpost.com's feeds of Reuters and the Associated Press, but five pages of results show nothing (The top of the first page of results is shown at right).

The Post does cover a demonstration of about 15,000 people. In Hungary.  I'm not saying that isn't newsworthy--the nation's leader was caught on a tape talking about how he had duped his countrymen before a recent election.

But...hello. From the New York Sun:

As world leaders convened for the second day of the United Nations General Assembly, tens of thousands of supporters of Israel gathered across the street from United Nations headquarters to protest President Ahmadinejad of Iran and to call for the unconditional release of the Israeli soldiers kidnapped on July 12. The international and national leaders who stepped up to the podium also challenged the United Nations to take preventative action against the Iranian leader who threatens the Jewish people with genocide....

There's a Robin Wright story on A15, Iranian Leader Defends Controversial Stands, but it includes nothing about the demonstration in the very same city Wright occupied, and it sadly misses the opportunity for the headline Lunatic Iranian Leader Downplays Nazi Genocide of Jews but sometimes it's hard to really nail the thing on deadline.

As one of Yourish's commenters says:

The easy solution is to call the local media and say “We are having a big rally to protest Bush!!” That is when they will show up.

More at Captain's Quarters

Comments

[soccer dad]

Back in 2001 there were two demonstrations. One was in Israel against then PM Barak's intent to make more concessions attended by something like 100,000.

About the same time there was a protest in South Carolina against the Confederate flag that had about 45,000.

Guess which one the NY Times called the turnout "disappointing." The way the media treats protests speaks volumes about their priorities.