Crowd control: WTO police action as seen on KING-TV. Learning From Seattle: The Media Moral(s) Of The WTO Story It’s all over but the branding. In the best ‘90s fashion, commentators on both sides of the police barricades have already settled on a mediagenic, copyright-friendly catchphrase for the recent WTO protests ("The Battle in Seattle"). Merchandising is underway, and memorabilia is on offer: The online auction house eBay recently listed the domain name "www.TheBattleInSeattle.com" for sale ("Great new domain name and/or business name for any Seattle-based activity, sport, or heck, maybe you just like the sound of it and want it for your personal e-mail address..."). Earlier, the site offered — then pulled — a listing for a "tear gas fun pack," which included a spent CS gas canister, tear gas shells, exploded concussion grenades, a handful of rubber bullets, and a busted billy club which the seller speculated may have been broken "over some poor protester’s head." As Media Channel correspondent Brian Dentz reports, the "poor protesters" were less able to laugh off the nightstick justice of Seattle's finest—or the official spin given the protests by mainstream media. Writes Dentz, "With the large number of video cameras on the ground, both network TV crews and digital video independents, it was clear the conflict was an air war, a war of public perception...Most local media, including the CBS affiliate, Channel 7, marginalized the protesters as 'rioters' and 'hooligans.' Describing the scene in downtown Seattle as 'block after block of boarded-up shops,' one reporter lamented, 'It's really sad for shoppers.' " The question hanging in the teargas-misted Seattle air is: Where now? What lessons, if any, should the corporate newsmedia, its critics, and alternative or underground journalists draw about mainstream coverage and alternative media in the wake of the WTO protests? In search of answers, the Media Channel compiled the following links to post-WTO coverage and commentary.

Reading Between the Lies TomPaine.commonsense, a liberal-leaning "journal of opinion," is a motherlode of post-WTO media criticism, with Roni Krouzman on the tear gas-clouded reality left out of the media’s distorted picture of the WTO protests and Kevin Mattson on media amnesia and the historical background of the Battle in Seattle ("The Big Questions No One’s Asking"). Norman Solomon’s acidly funny application of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s famous stages of grieving to media coverage of the ministerial meeting ("Wallowing in Their Grief: The Media and the Failure of the World Trade Talks") provides black-comic relief. Dismal Scientists Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s "Economic Reporting Review" calls the Washington Post and New York Times to account for reporting received opinions as fact, among them the notion that the WTO’s purpose is to remove restrictions on international trade. In fact, claims FAIR, "one of the main goals of the United States in previous rounds of WTO (or GATT) negotiations has been to increase international protection for patents and copyrights." Washington Post writer Steven Pearlstein’s "WTO Talks Said to Send ‘Grim Message’" was especially biased, according to FAIR, which notes that Pearlstein buttresses his doomy claim that the collapse of the talks could "cause the already burgeoning U.S. trade deficit to climb even higher" without citing any of the economists associated with opponents of the WTO. Reading The AP The Riot Act In "Misleading From the Start," Emperors-clothes.com contributor Jared Israel performs a buzzsaw deconstruction on a December 9 Associated Press story headlined "Seattle Police Actions Questioned." With savage relish, Israel takes the AP to task for what he calls "editorial guidance" — the subtle slanting of a story to protect readers "from conclusions that might follow, helter skelter, from mere fact." Israel's own conclusion, after a line-by-line analysis of the AP story, is: "Some people have said that the kind of police tactics used in Seattle are the greatest threat to democracy in our country...I think the amazingly uniform duplicity of the media is the greatest threat to democracy. For how can people make decisions, how can they oppose police state tactics, if they are fed a diet of lies?" ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF COVERAGE Irritainment Tonight! The Direct Action Media Network (DAMN!), a loose-knit collective of activist media galvanized by the WTO protests in Seattle, has launched Direct Action Headline News, a streaming-video alternative news "channel" distributed via the Internet, cable TV and, soon, satellite, in cooperation with Free Speech TV. Fittingly, the channel's inaugural edition spotlights the Battle in Seattle, where an estimated 85,000 anti-globalization protesters reminded WTO ministers that organized labor and environmental and human-rights activists have a place at the bargaining table, too. From Direct Action Media Network, December 23 1999.  Not Ready For Prime Time (And Proud Of It) The Seattle Independent Media Center, a clearinghouse during the WTO protests for alternative media reports and streaming video from the frontlines, continues its WTO-related coverage. The site’s up-to-the-minute newswire includes items on Amnesty International’s call for an inquiry into police actions in Seattle, speculations on "How the Feds Manipulated the Seattle Police," and an item about a commemorative mural to be created in Seattle by artists who participated in the week of protests. New World Disorder AlterNet contributor Monte Paulsen ponders the cultural fallout of the WTO debacle from an alternative journalist’s perspective, from the victory jigs of jubilant demonstrators literally dancing "in the soggy streets" to infuriated delegates from developing nations, one of whom charged that the United States was "intent on forcing the process and having a declaration at all costs, almost as if it doesn’t matter what the rest of the countries think about it. Well, that is not going to happen. The WTO does not belong to the United States."   What's Your View? Speak Out in the MediaChannel Forum. AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE MEDIA.