On November 15, for the second Friday in a row, a new group calling itself the Flying Pickets protested at the studios of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR)/ National Public Radio (NPR) in St. Paul. The actions have been called to bring attention to and protest the continual barrage of pro-war reporting by major media outlets, including MPR. Similar actions have been occurring in St. Paul/Minneapolis with regular frequency following horrible media coverage of the historic October 26th anti-war protest that drew more than 10,000 people to the St. Paul Capitol building.
The Flying Pickets group continued to protest the continual Pro-war, Corporatization and corporate control of the media. Judging by the numerous toots of horns, along with cheery waves and peace signs we got, the principle of the protest was well received by the general public.
Many who stopped to chat with the protestors nodded in agreement on the basic premise of the media being biased in it's reporting of and analysis of the possible coming war with the people of Iraq by the current US administration.
Even more telling however, was the reaction of workers, reporters and volunteers of MPR to the protest. Many agreed that the media in general, and MPR and NPR in particular was indeed biased in it's reporting. Numerous times the protestors heard comments such as "good job, keep it up" from some of the workers and volunteers of MPR. One in particular stated "you know, I never thought about it but you guys are right" when explained that the purpose of the protest was to highlight the complete lack of Anti-War commentators such as Cornell West, Michael Parentti or Noam Chomsky and their analysis in any of the media, including MPR.
One of the executives, Thomas Keighen, gave this reporter a tour of the MPR operation. This gave us the opportunity to air our grievances with and the reason why we were at MPR. Mr Keighen listened respectfully however disagreed with the idea that MPR was indeed biased and pro-war in it's reporting and analysis of current events. We agreed to disagree on this and the conversation was cordial. However I must again point out that numerous people, both inside and outside of MPR agreed with central theme of the protest.
Afterwards, the protestors were interviewed by a reporter from KFAI, who questioned each of the picketers on our reason for protesting outside of MPR. A large part of the interview applied to the possible changes of MPR and NPR in recent years. All questioned agreed that MPR had indeed changed, seeming to move away from it's stated principle of being a public owned radio station and having the appearances of being "corporatized" and certainly pro-war. One protestor stated "you will certainly never hear MPR or any of the other media outlets give the view of the economy from the perspective of us ordinary working people." Speaking as a Trade Union Activist, I can ascertain to the truth of this statement, especially during a strike. I have seen the media distort the reasons and goals of Strikers numerous times. We all agreed that it was a very successful action and that we had made our point. One comment heard was "man, now I feel like a true patriot." Our next target action for the flying pickets will be KSTP TV on University Ave in St Paul. Further details will be provided when we have finalized our plan. Oh and just in case people think that we are finished with MPR, I can say with assurance that we, the Flying Pickets, will be back.
