Demonstrations often get completely out of hand, if we can believe the news programs, and that is why some politicians believe that the right to demonstrate should be limited. Media logic (NPO 2) investigated whether this makes any sense. No, it is “fact-free chatter”, as journalist Bart de Koning calculated. Although there are many more demonstrations these days, the law is broken in only 3 percent of cases. And only one in a thousand demonstrations involves violence. Small beer compared to, for example, the weekly football violence. Yet no one advocates restricting the right to play football.
Where does the image of protests getting out of hand come from? This is, as Giselle van Cann of NOS News explains, because the news is only interested when things go wrong. Good news is not news. News media focus on what is different. If the train has arrived safely, the editor-in-chief explains, she will not report it. If he goes off the rails, he will make it Eight o’clock news.
The climate activists of Extinction Rebellion know how the news media work and therefore consciously violate the law, they say Media logic. If the police didn’t tow them away, they wouldn’t be in the news. The program shows grim images of burning police cars, the water cannon spraying water against the backs of activists, and contrasts those images with a moving demonstration by Grandparents for the Climate. You get it immediately: grim spectacle sells, cute dancing elderly people much less so.
We also see a protest at the NOS building. The NOS did not make a news item about this demonstration because it was too small and too orderly. The Telegraph spoke, however, of “threats of violence”, “harassment” of journalists, and “a trail of destruction”. Researcher Merel Driessen from Erasmus University calls this the securitization of activism. It is not the goals of demonstrations that are discussed, but how annoying they are and whether they threaten security.
Rise of fascism
Maybe you should Media logic Let’s investigate how television covered the elections. Did that go well? The attention was overwhelming, there were many debates. The larger parties were given every opportunity to get their story out in the spotlight.
But was the voter sufficiently informed? The news programs clearly reflected what the politicians wanted to talk about, but shouldn’t they have pushed back more? What I missed is that presenters and discussion leaders contradicted politicians when they spoke nonsense or sowed hatred. What I missed is that they addressed the real problems.
Take the rise of the radical right, as Rosan Smits describes in her disturbing new book This is fascism. It was hardly mentioned on TV. Although the PVV lost eleven seats, the radical right-wing bloc still occupies one third of the House. JA21 has a chance of participating in government, former PVV minister Fleur Agema became a dinner lady Pauw & De Wit. On the radical right, this campaign became increasingly normalized through television. That’s already in the name. We were no longer allowed to say ‘fascism’ and ‘extreme right’, but now ‘radical right’ is also falling out of favor. TV prefers to speak of ‘conservative’ or simply ‘right-wing’.
PVV leader Wilders was tackled severely during the debates, but only because he is a brawler and a runaway. He was hardly challenged about his undemocratic ideas. JA21 leader Eerdmans, who promotes almost the same ideas, was not harassed because he behaved properly. Wilders does not even need to join the government because other parties have adopted his ideas. Attacks on migrants and fundamental rights, such as the right to demonstrate, have become common. The TV debates and news programs went along with this.
All news programs? No, one continued to bravely resist. News hour again had a series of interviews with party leaders in which they were quizzed about the inconsistencies in their election manifestos. Almost all party leaders fell into an elaborately researched and carefully planned ambush. Whether it helps is another matter.
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