Do publicity stunts work in getting social issues into local media?
by Joe Tarr
Early on the morning of May 14, Chris Irwin and a friend sneaked onto the World's Fair Park, armed with rock climbing equipment, several days' supply of food, and a banner that read "STOP THE BOMBS."
The two scaled the side of the Sunsphere, where they would dangle for nearly three days as they tried to draw attention to increasingly unstable management of the world's nuclear weapons.
There was a method to their madness. In New York City, representatives from around the world were talking about the future of nuclear bombs. Built as a symbol of world unity, the Sunsphere also happened to be near the Oak Ridge National Laboratories and the Watts Bar nuclear plant—where the U.S. government, for the first time in history, was allowing a private plant to manufacture tritium for bombs. It broke years of nuclear weapons treaties, and opened the door for countries around the world to begin manufacturing bomb-grade tritium.
Whatever your thoughts are on nuclear weapons control, it's a complex issue that deserves attention. Unfortunately, you don't read about it much in the papers.
Irwin and his buddy hoped to change that with their little stunt.
However, local media largely ignored the protesters.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel ran a couple of short stories and pictures. A few TV and radio stations broadcast short blurbs. But no one—including Metro Pulse—delved into why the protesters climbed the tower. "Everybody in Knoxville who saw it was talking about it," Irwin says. "The media treated it like a big car wash."
If climbing the Sunsphere won't get your cause attention, just what will? The media is the vehicle that generally decides what issues are important. When that vehicle becomes a dumbed-down means of selling ads and making profits, vital issues are brushed aside.
Ideally, if enough people make racket about something, the media will listen and report on it. But protests often fail to do much of anything. For those in the media, it seems every time you turn around, someone is protesting something new.
Margie Nichols, news director for WBIR, Channel 10, says that the station has no set policy for covering demonstrations. However, she says they try to avoid those they view as being done for attention.
"People are going to more and more extremes to get on television," Nichols says.
Nichols couldn't remember the extent that the Sunsphere protest was covered. She says the station generally strives for local news.
However, with Watts Bar and Oak Ridge so close to Knoxville, the issues do have local relevance.
Irwin suspects corporate ownership of media has meant many serious issues—which large corporations have a stake in—are ignored.
Stephen Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has been an activist for various causes for years—even getting himself arrested during a few protests. Smith says getting media attention is a tricky game.
"I'm not sure what's the right way for news to be covered. But when you look at news as a business, it's not necessarily what is important, but what people want or are interested in," Smith says.
Which means that the media will pay attention to issues that are popular at the moment, but ignore others that could be just as important or more important. Or, they'll give special treatment to causes that match their own biases. (In contrast to the Sunsphere incident, Earth First!'s takeover of the Gore headquarters was well covered, which Smith sees reflecting a local conservative bias eager to embarrass the Democrats.)
Smith is fighting for cleaner air by getting better pollution control on TVA's coal power plants and finding alternative forms of energy production. By getting accurate information, developing relationships with reporters and drawing attention to pollution's effect in the Smokies, the Southern Alliance has been effective in getting local media to pay attention. It took a while, but the issue is finally in vogue.
Other important causes—sprawl, land conservation, and nuclear bombs—aren't so lucky, admits Smith, who protested against nuclear weapons in the '80s.
"I think in some ways the international weapons stuff is more critical now, but you have to read and study what is going on and it doesn't lend itself to Mc-media approach," Smith says. "It requires getting a journalist to really dig in there and do some reporting. You've got to think about this and convey it to an audience. That's getting harder and harder to find.
"The media have a real responsibility but if they lock that gate and hold on to the key, they stifle that conversation."
July 20, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 29
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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