Photo by Lecia Finney: Camping at the Occuply Oakland Protest.
Dr. Mark Finney
Journalism Department
The following is a transcript of a real conversation between me and my sister, who lives in Oakland, Calif. A few elements have been changed for the sake of clarity, grammatical correctness and decency.
Lecia: Should I go join the 99% tomorrow?
me: Hell yeah!
Lecia: I’m thinking about it.
me: What’s the hold up?
Lecia: I have meetings tomorrow.
me: Blow it off!
Lecia: I could definitely go to the late gathering, not sure if I could make the noon one.
me: Go to something. It’s worth doing.
Lecia: I don’t know if I support their methods.
me: What methods?
Lecia: Demonstrating without a solution. They just want to say what is wrong, aren’t providing ways to fix it.
me: I don’t think that’s true. The problem is that appropriate fixes are complex and therefore don’t translate well. News coverage has done a crappy job of expressing those fixes. Look at this movie: MoveOn.org:Why we support Occupy Wall Street.
A little while later…
me: Hey
Lecia: Hi
me: Did you watch the movie?
Lecia: Movie?
me: The video I sent you hours ago.
Lecia: My bad, I’m working. It isn’t Oakland day yet.
me: What is Oakland day?
Lecia: Occupy Oakland day. When I’m told I shouldn’t be working.
me: ? I’m still not clear on what you’re saying. Are you saying that you can’t go because you have to work?
Lecia: You want me to watch a video- I haven’t done so because I’m working. Tomorrow, I’ve been told by the 99% to not work-thereby giving me plenty of time to watch videos.
me: Ah. I see.
A little while later…
Lecia: Read this: David Brooks: The Wrong Inequality. New York Times 10/31/11.
me: What do you think about that editorial?
Lecia: I agree with it mostly. It amazes me the jobs requiring a college degree now days, and street experience is no substitute.
me: I agree. But I see this as more of what Brooks would call a blue inequality than a red one, as he describes it.
Yes, more and more people need college degrees, but the problem is that they’ve become increasingly unaffordable because of a corporate mentality with regards to colleges.
More and more colleges are run as businesses and not educators, costing more, doing it more efficiently (read with less quality).
I think that this is more to the point regarding the protesters: Thomas Friedman: Why Many Back Occupy Wall Street. New York Times 10/30/11.
And this guy tends to drift toward the end, but it is another good read on the topic: LawyersGunsAndMoneyBlog.com 10/31/11.
Lecia: Do you think part of the reason college is becoming less effective/lower quality is because it is more of an assumption of life, as opposed to a career decision?
me: Yes and no. Part of what’s happening is that demand is up and standards are down. Many people (probably resulting from the appropriateness of your question) are less concerned with the quality of their degree than the paper in their hand (and the line on their resume).
Lecia: I think this may be a chicken/egg situation though. Students care less because the quality standards are lower, or the quality standers are lower because students don’t care.
me: To a certain extent yes. But that’s not really the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) protesters’ issue. Though it is related.
The problem is that a student goes to college because she knows she needs it to get a better career. She gets up to her eyeballs in debt, spends the rest of her life paying it off, because the career she can get into doesn’t pay all that well. If she defaults she’s [in deep trouble], but she’s just scraping by in many cases.
And that has to do with the fact that incomes for most of us have not increased substantially in a long time, but expenses continue to grow.
But for the 1% these are not issues at all. And even when they are, they get bailed out, keep making…tons of money and influencing policy that benefits them at our student’s expense.
Lecia: is the Occupy thing about college debt though? I figured these were two parallel issues.
me: See my last post. Its not about college debt, except to the extent that college debt is another of these bad deals that the rest of us have to do, and the 1% take serious advantage of.
Lecia: Gotcha.
me: You mentioned previously that you are concerned about their tactics, i.e., protesting.
What would you propose as an effective alternative (which is not to say that protesting is effective)?
Lecia: I think protesting is a-ok, but occupying a park/municipal area where they are admittedly creating a strain on the city to maintain facilities, clean up from people pissing in the street, and increase police attention doesn’t help.
me: You didn’t answer my question. And I agree. Protesting sucks. It is ineffective, a big strain, brings out the crazies, etc.
Lecia: I don’t know that I have an idea of a better way to do it, but how does shutting down the Port of Oakland help? Or potentially shutting down the Bay Bridge, resulting in a trickle down effect of keeping someone from being able to get to work/increasing commute time?
me: You’re right. Protesting sucks, but for many it is the ONLY credible avenue to be heard, and that’s my point.
They can’t buy ads on TV, they can’t hire lobbyists, they don’t have a news network (Fox) on their side.
Lecia: I think they would be more effective if they were able to say via media or clear spokespeople some suggestions for improvement.
me: A really important reason that the Tea Party movement has been successful is because it is REALLY well funded. While the OWS crowd has no legit funding.
Lecia: You said there has been poor media coverage-there are a lot of people in the 99%, someone should be able to harness the media.
me: They can’t afford it. They don’t have corporate funding. Did you see my Tea Party note – 3 notes ago? I cannot understate the importance of corporate funding in the Tea Party’s success.
A little while later…
Lecia: I hear what you are saying, but its like a game of telephone: with 5M people, the message is lost.
me: Yes, it is. You’re absolutely right. But we have a corporate media system in this country where money talks.
Lecia: I don’t know if I agree.
me: If media is the standard of credibility and the best way to get the message out, its clearly skewed toward those who have good funding.
Lecia: Look at twitter, Wikipedia, blogging, there is a lot of independent success in nontraditional media.
me: Yes, those are free media, but they have a lot less of a broad-based audience and they lack credibility as well.
There is a gatekeeping effect of mainstream media, in that the mainstream media process of determining what gets airtime creates a sense of credibility for those things that to get it.
Lecia: So Dr. Media — what is the solution for a large group with no money to be heard?
me: Good question. Protesting.
Protesting achieves a number of goals 1) it pisses people off, i.e., gets in their face.
Lecia: Ha. But what of the message?
me: 2) If its big enough, it can’t be ignored by media (which is what eventually happened on Wall Street).
You’re right. The message gets lost in the crazies.
Media already has an inclination to cover the process and not the substance. When the process looks nuts, the substance really gets underplayed.
Lecia: The 99% needs a MLK or something. Maybe the Kardashians are available.
me: They have Elizabeth Warren, hopefully she will get elected next fall.
She’s really good, I think. She was Obama’s nominee for the Consumer Protection Agency.
Lecia: Elected for what?
me: Senate. Massachusetts, I think.
Would you mind if I published this chat in the Paw Print? I think it’s really interesting and covers a lot of issues that are confusing for a lot of people about the protesters, the issues, etc.
Lecia: Sure. Will I get a pseudonym?
me: Do you want one?
Lecia: Only if its a really cool one.
me: What I’m asking is: do you request anonymity?
Lecia: Are you teaching any media studies classes this semester?
me: Of course I am. I teach media studies every term.
Lecia: What do you think? Or better—what do [your students] think could be done better?
me: A lot could be done better, but it would require some fundamental changes to the way news is constructed and funded. The public media model used in Britain is really good and produces a lot of independent news and analysis. We barely have public media and its funding structure is truly [poor].
What’s Been Said…