Anti-corporate globalization protesters organizing against the World Economic Forum find themselves battling degenerative characterizations and blatant calls for violence against their person along with an almost pervasive idealization of the New York City Police Department. It is futile to predict the effect this type of coverage may have either on the Forum itself or on the overall mood of the City in the upcoming days. However, the groundwork for violent confrontation has already been laid: not by the protest movement or even by World Economic Forum organizers, but by New York City’s own mainstream press. WEF-related headlines have read like declarations of war: “City Girds For Protests at Economic Summit Meeting” (Times), “Policing the Protesters” (Times), “Blue Security Blanket” (Daily News), and “Law of the Fist” (Voice). Much of the local print media has hurled an unprecedented amount of vitriolic abuse in the direction of the protest movement. “Confab Welcome, Crazies Not” thundered a Jan. 13 New York Daily News editorial. Variously referring to protesters as “legions of agitators,” “parasites,” “assorted kooks,” and “wackos,” the Daily News went on to make the argument that protesters deserved whatever physical abuse they happened to receive, either from the police or from “ordinary” New Yorkers. “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more,” the News opined. “Try to disrupt this town and you’ll get your anti-globalization buts kicked. Capish?” Perhaps feeling outdone, Steve Dunleavy ofThe NewYork Post chimed in on Jan. 18. In addition to repeating the same threats of “justified” police violence and a similar litany of abuse (“punks,” “numbskulls,” “nasty little twits”) the Post columnist further identified the protesters as potential killers. “Private big shots have hired [former Philadelphia Police Commissioner John] Timoney...to make sure that [the police]...don’t wear toe tags in the morgue,” he wrote. For his part, (comparatively) staid New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman called the protesters “anti-Starbucks wackos” and claimed that they were “known less for their deep thinking than for their demonstrated willingness to trash cities that play host to these gatherings.” And in perhaps the most unexpected climax to the anti-protester paranoia, Richard Esposito of the “liberal” Village Voice referred to protesters as “al-Qaeda-like, down to their transnational wanderings, their leaders’ wealthy backgrounds, and their fundamentalist message.” (see sidebar) Not surprisingly, Esposito’s article relied entirely on police and security sources. It has become a truism of progressive media analysis that the mainstream media tends to rely heavily on “elite” government sources for news and quotes. As far back as 1979, media critic and NYU Professor Todd Gitlin argued that “once hired and assigned, reporters customarily form strong bonds with the sources...on whom they depend for stories. They absorb the world views of the powerful.” What may be an unusual and disturbing twist to this usual reliance upon elite officials, however, emerges when we examine the specific type of elite viewpoint broadcast by the mainstream media in the weeks leading up to the Forum. With local political officials largely ignored, and official WEF spokespeople seemingly silenced, The Times, The Post, The Daily News, and even The Voice chose to devote the bulk of their coverage to the quasi-military New York Police Department security preparations. An extensive examination of the 15 Forum-related articles produced by the New York City print media between Nov. 8 and Jan. 25 reveals an astonishing lack of source diversity and an obsession with paramilitary police tactics. Law enforcement sources were approximately three times more likely to be referenced by the print media than were spokespeople for protest groups. Interviews with New York Police Chief Raymond Kelly have appeared in at least nine articles; interviews with private security director (and ex-Philadelphia Police Commissioner) John Timoney, five. (In contrast, the President of the WEF has been interviewed once; New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, not at all.) Of the 15 articles explicitly covering the upcoming WEF, three (including an excellent New York Times story published on Jan. 25) examined the protest movement, while 12 focused almost entirely upon the city’s response to the protest movement. None actually talked about the WEF. A mock Forum security drill held at Shea Stadium on Jan. 17 generated at least four articles, dozens of pictures, and an inflammatory cover story in the Jan. 23-29 issue of The Village Voice. At the minimum, one would have expected the mainstream press to provide readers with an objective look at the WEF and those protesting it, and to have maintained a diversity of sources when reporting on the controversies that global financial meetings have historically carried in their wake. In the end, though, a discussion of what the WEF actually is, along with an analysis of what Forum protesters might actually want, seems far from the agenda of most mainstream media publications. While we now distribute 12,000 free copies in New York, a free press isn't free -- we need help from our supporters. Please consider donating funds today and help keep independent media alive. A one-year subscription is available for $20. Checks can be made to the NYC IMC PRINT TEAM.