50 States, 50 Protests, 1 Movement. https://fiftyfifty.one/ | #fiftyfiftyone
This is an unofficial community related to the 50501 movement. Find the official communities at https://50501.chat/.
https://www.threads.net/@nprpubliceditor/post/DIhOEQQOyqP
EDIT: Also worth noting that the next nationwide protest date for 50501 is May 1st
The message is that peaceful protests that don't involve property damage, and major disruption to business don't warrant respect or attention in America.
Within a capitalist system no one is going to pay any attention until you distrust the flow of capital in one form or another: stop traffic so people can’t go to work, shut down businesses, strike, slow down at work, target a CEO home, call in sick en masse.
Why would anyone pay attention if you’re just standing in a park holding signs?
Give it time. Women's Suffrage started pretty tame before the firebombs.
I love NPR but have been watching them slide right continually for most of my adult life. Then NPR outlets (not npr itself but still) took major donations from the Koch brothers.
:|
still probably the most factual news outlet but I temper my expectations.
Trump wanting to end PBS, NPR etc., calling them fake news does keep me supporting my local station tho.
I stopped donating when they aided the DNC in ignoring Bernie in 2016.
"Aren't news worthy enough"
News can and does keep dragging the same worthless news articles whenever they want so this is a lie
That's like the entire purpose of a protests. How incredibly unethical of a journalist to even say something like this.
I love NPR but this stinks real bad. They should resign.
being the largest protest in us history makes it kinda newsworthy….
What a lazy hands-off way of reporting. What happened to walking in the crowd, interviewing protesters, interviewing innoconous passers-by, interviewing people that are hindered, ..., and also getting a reaction/quote from whomever/whatever is being protested against? Instead they apparently want to just publish some photos. That's not journalism, that's photography.
Photography is journalism.
Scroll through the Pulitzer winning photographs, and know that some of them have literally changed history. Pulitzer winning photographs from the Vietnam War turned political opinion on the war itself: 1969's Saigon Execution by Edward T. Adams, 1973's Terror of War by Nick Ut. 1977's The Soiling of Old Glory, was a key part in telling the story of what the state of the desegregation movement was at that time. 1994's The Vulture and the Little Girl (actually a boy) did make a difference in spurring increases in both private and government/NGO aid, and tragically played a big role in the photographer's suicide a year later.
There is a time and a place for words, for still photos, for video. Visual works like still photos are still incredibly important for journalism, especially coverage of things like demonstrations and protests.
I'm not against using photos in support of journalism, they absolutely make a difference, but photography alone is not journalism. Without a story, it's just photography. Your examples seem to have all been part of a bigger story.
My opinion is basically reflected in that quote you used: "a key part in telling the story of". While it was a key part, the photo alone was not the entire story.
My 2 cents. There isn't a cohesive reason for the protests so reporting on it will be muddy. Devil's advocate but it's the same reason occupy Wall Street failed. The message got watered down. If the media can't report on a clear, concise and unwavering requirement from the crowd then reporting on it is exceedingly hard to sell to the public.
If the media can report on Trump's incoherent rantings and make that sound like anything more than hot garbage, then they can absolutely do the same for protesters with varying causes, who are nowhere near as incoherent.
I say this in good faith, and I have a friend at NPR and I don't hate them...
Should we protest at the news stations to make it easy for them to get pictures?
Seriously, would it work?
I have been saying this and I’m really glad to see others coming up with the same idea. News won’t come to us? Then we need to go to the news.
We need to march around their buildings, shout up at their windows, block access to their parking lots with our sheer numbers - make us impossible to ignore.
Isn't fox news in new york? Make their little spectacles outside a nightmare!
It's with doing anyway. They are the worst enablers of this madness.
Are there non-American news that are covering it?
Not fully free from similar issues here. For instance, the BBC is massively downplaying turnout
The BBC is saying "thousands" were protesting on April 19th when others estimate in the range of 4 million. Counting people in photos on social media in just a handful of cities gives a figure higher than thousands. There were hundreds of protest locations
The BBC also claims there were "tens of thousands" on April 5th when it was estimated at 3-5 million. There were over 100 000 in DC and 100 000 in NYC alone on April 5th!
I'm in Portugal and the anti-Trump protests in the US have been covered in prime time TV news here.
I'd like the journalists to do a tiny bit of actual work.
Report on what's happening, and do a rough headcount every now and then, report on the protest growing or waning.
It seems like journalists think they can't write 50,000 protesters showed up because actually there were 62,490 so it would be disastrous misinformation and it's better to post a picture, write "There's a protest." then forget about it.
Knowing how many are showing up each time matters. Knowing exactly how many doesn't really matter.
American jorunalist talking about their proffessional ethics is like a serial killer talking about their empathy.
Sounds like they're telling us set shit on fire if you want press coverage. They want news worthy let's give them news worthy.
Create something beyond your control. Something that does not need to be controlled.
We need to get more creative if not more disruptive. People are sign waving and gathering and occasionally there are special speakers, but it's pretty much just an open air meetup. Images need to be bolder (not the photos, but the imagery) so organizations like NPR have more to be tell. This Easter weekend it would've been epic and very appropriate to have someone non-White dress up as Jesus, carrying the cross, and have people shout things like, "Vermin! Rapist! You're poisoning our nations blood! Go back to Nazereth!" Depict the horrible rhetoric from the right that wouldn't have made an exception for the Son of God because he wasn't born here.
I also had an idea about a Nationwide effort to basically have a one-minute strike. One minute of doing absolutely nothing and everyone else would be quite freaked out by this, maybe even ask questions.
We can't just make noise, we need to disrupt things.
This is brilliant - make the protests artistically interesting.
Most of the grown-up theater kids are already there anyway.
The main challenge will be making sure the message is still seen as serious. But I think your idea about showing how MAGA are on the opposite side as someone most of them claim to worship is brilliant.
I saw several old people last Saturday dressed like the Statue of Liberty... ? I guess we should have thrown red paint on them and called the local newspaper?
That's actually not a bad idea now that I've written it out.
From a total outsiders perspective (I don't live in in the US) who has some experience in organising protests(doing so since I am 14, ran for a state rep. here,etc.): You need to find a more unified way of protesting. Yes,that can be creative,but the message has to be far more unified than it is currently.
To give you an example what I mean: I made the effort to look up foreign press coverage,some domnestic press coverage, social media and photos taken by friends of mine of one rather prominent protest location of the most recent ones.
So far I came across the following messages:
Pro Palestina
Pro Feminism
Pro Ukraine
Pro Supreme Court
Pro National parks and environmental conservation
Pro various, contending Democrats and some smaller Parties
Pro Diversity
Pro LGBTQ
Pro Choice
Against Deportations
Against Supreme Court
Against Trump personally
Against the Reps
Against science influence/budget cuts
Against influencing universities
Against Tate and Musk
Against USaid Cuts
Against US government cuts
Against tariffs
Against Milei
Against Gun Violence
Against Violence in Dafur
And surely a few more I am missing/forgot. Don't get me wrong, the USA have a lot of pressing issues. But people will judge a book by it's cover and while we all often pretend that the issue each one of us finds the most important IS the MOST IMPORTANT and anyone that doesn't think the same is an idiot, we tend to not see the wood amgonst all the trees. Because there is one drawback in this stance: Everyone has it. And once you declare "this topic is the most important" the people who support the other 40 topics as the most important topics are alienated. Which leads to infighting, some not showing up, etc. (If this reminds you of Life of Brian, well, it's a very factual movie in that regard)
But there is ONE main issue: The Trump government. While it can sometimes be useful to choose a cause that unites the people behind one even though that is not the main issue, these have to be choosen wisely. (Türkiye is one recent example: The problem is not that Imanoglu has been arrested. Nor was the problem about Gezi park back then. But it's a cause that unites the people)
This needs to be done fast and much more coordinated and "reaching all areas of society " than it is currently visible. To give you an example: European Anti-Fascist protests are often formed by a coalition of trade unions, political parties (and we are talking not about "leftist" parties but parties than are rather "mid left",e.g. Greens, social democrats, etc.), churches, sport clubs and similar social circles. Why do they bother? Because they all know if Fascism ever comes back it will get them all one after another. Just like it is now.
And yes, 50501 is a good start,but support is lacking - because of the "most important topic" issues.
This goes both ways: If on one side you need to talk about unification of people - but you do also need to shed the political groups that are not helping but actually hurting the main cause. To give you an example (and this is not taking a stance in the Palestina issue, it's just a good example that came up today during an interview): If your protest is associated with a group that uses the Hamas triangle and sees the Palestina topic as the one and only topic worth protesting for, they are hurting the main issue, their own issue (with an USA in full flight Fascism that protects Bibi doing whatever he likes Gaza will be "a summertime stroll" compared to what will follow) and alienate regular Joe and Jane as well as give the opposing side verbal ammunition to fight the whole movement. (Why I did choose this example: During the protest I looked up a foreign journalist did interview a spoksperson of some group - who was very well trained and did, despite her young age and obvious nervousness, an outstanding job- and some idiots wearing the triangle similar to the yellow jewish star worn during the Holocaust, screamed in the camera and tried to sideline the interview because anyone not willing to listen to their (very much genocidal) monologues would just tolerate children being killed.
Now, imagine Jane Average,40, who is afraid that her brother in law,who is an legal immigrant, gets deported, has more and nore problems putting food on the table due to rising costs, is afraid that her husband is loosing his job over the tarrifs and how the world will be for her daughters sees this. For years Jane Average has been voting democrats,yes. But she didn't go out of her way to do so. She is now considering going to a protest - the first one in her life.
But what are they actually protesting for? And aren't they all idiots like the one she saw on TV? And,unknown to her, her friend Juliet Somebody is also considering. If she would hear from Jane that she is going,she would go as well....etc.
TLDR: Unify your message, shed idiots, get the whole society behind one cause.
It's the same excuse they use for not posting rape stories and knife attacks in germany, unless it is an immigrant of course.
I generally agree with the Argument of significance when there's about 100 rapes daily that you cant report everything, but the argument falls flat once they decide to still post them when it fuels division.
Peaceful protests don't change anything. If you want change, you've got to set shit on fire.
Peaceful protests are more likely to succeed. We need to get 3.5%
Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world
NON-DISRUPTIVE protests don't change anything. Typically, violent protests are risky and potentially counterproductive. They make it harder to recruit larger numbers and easier to justify a proportionate police/government response, further discouraging recruitment. It's also just bad PR. People are stupid, and gullible. All it takes to turn people against your movement is to convince them you're violent and dangerous, which again, bad for recruitment. One thrown brick, especially early on as a movement gains momentum and tries becoming sustainable long term.
Sometimes the thrown brick kicks off the movement, like Stonewall, but you can't count on moments like that with planning. Those are powder kegs set to go off from a spark with decades, CENTURIES of fuel. And even then, the LGBTQ+ rights movement took decades of work and organizing and planning after the fact.
The most successful movements take a long time to build support and establish organization to commit supporters to disruptive actions. And it gets harder the bigger a country is, harder to organize and coordinate over greater distances and life circumstances.
BUT, once you get to that point, by katamari-ing fellow protesters with marches and days of action, getting larger groups to commit to an action organized within the movement, building social support infrastructure to maintain things, you can go further, organize more specific disruptions. Sit ins, boycotts, strikes, blockades, occupations, slow downs, vandalism, interrupting police/ICE operations, shop ins. There's a lot of powerful methods of non-violent protest you can get up to if you've got the support and are coordinated enough.
The civil rights movement wasn't just standing in crowds with signs asking nicely to have civil rights laws pass, they were breaking the law and interrupting the functioning of society. We look at other effective non-violent protest movements. Hong Kong's coordination and disruption tactics were AWE inspiring, and would be effective here if we can get to the point of large scale coordinated disruption.
Actually, here's the wikipedia page for tactics and methods used in the Hong Kong protests for anyone who wants to read it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactics_and_methods_surrounding_the_2019%E2%80%932020_Hong_Kong_protests
What sticks with me, as it applies to organizing in the states, and the west in general, is the fundamental organizing principle of "Do Not Split". There's a lot of infighting and division among protest groups (much of which is intentionally manufactured to weaken said groups) on the basis of specific issues. Communist groups fighting Socialist groups over how society as a whole should be organized. Purity testing over individual belief systems rather than uniting over shared goals despite differences in approach. The fascists don't have this problem. They'll step in line with each other over their shared hate even if the details differ, and it's why they're WINNING...I mean, aside from all the inherited/exploitation gained wealth and power.
If you're someone looking to join the 50501 protests, or are wanting to organize your own, maybe you're unhappy with some of the methodology, remember this: DO NOT SPLIT. If you despise someone and they're fighting the same fight as you, THEY ARE STILL YOUR ALLY. There is no greater cause than fighting fascism together.
May Day, May 1st, is the next major protest event. We are in the early days of this movement. Yes, we should've been doing it years ago, but the next best day to plant a tree is today.
Why would you point to the Hong Kong protests?
The Hong Kong protests were a massive effort, but also a complete failure.
They lost the city and are now under undisputed CCP rule. Hundreds of participants arrested, 0/5 demands met.
People have given up and a lot of them are just moving out instead. The only good thing is that some were able to move out.
Because their tactics are not why they failed, and they were a modern protest movement using sophisticated modern tactics to put up an incredible fight against a much bigger, equally modern enemy they could almost certainly never beat on their own, whose tactics and strategies we can appropriate and use for our own movement.
They were coordinated, smart, disruptive, fighting a panopticon mass surveillance military superpower with resources and political sway other superpowers would also struggle with. We hear about the underdogs winning because it's notable. Underdogs usually lose, no matter how big their fight, and they were the underdogs, by a LOT.
We should absolutely take from the more successful civil rights movement of the 60s, Ghandi's Indian independence movement, the Suffrage movement, but looking at stuff like the Hong Kong protests gives us a look at tactics and a general approach that can be used in the modern day to combat modern day oppression effectively.
You can do everything right and still lose. Hong Kong's protesters did everything they could, went far above and beyond what a weaker movement could have managed. The tools and tactics they used shouldn't be ignored just because they were beaten. They were powerful methods of disruption and resistance, ways to fight and protect the most people in the movement at once as possible.
Just start with blocking some lanes during rush hour
So what they're saying is... there's another way to get their attention. Challenge accepted.
This is why strikes are more newsworthy: they disrupt things.
With a protest news will cover:
After that, you're basically done, other than maybe taking some pictures of interesting signs or costumes.
With a strike you get all the above plus:
The disruption part is key, because disruptions lead to other disruptions and that leads to a new story.
Look at the coverage of the trash collectors' strike in Birmingham
Or look at the coverage of the transport strikes in Greece. Again, because a lot of things are being disrupted, there's more to talk about.
Part of the reason that disruption is key is that there's a long chain of side effects. For example, with the garbage strike there's uncollected garbage. That has a side effect of attracting rats and other vermin. People worry that that might have a side effect of causing disease outbreaks. That might have an effect on the already strained public health system.
In addition, the more disruption, the more pressure there is to fix it. That results in various people passing the buck / blame to other people, which results in more news-worthy things to write about. You get conflicts between different levels of government. Conflict is interesting, so it's something that makes the news.
A protest on the weekend that doesn't really disrupt anything just isn't going to get the same level of coverage.
11 days until May Day which would be the perfect opportunity for a really disruptive general strike. But, I guess Americans aren't concerned enough about the state of their country to really disrupt anything yet.
They do need to be covered, though. The world needs to see that many here will never bend the knee and accept anything less than a real democracy.
Maybe you could actually go see it so you don't have to report "hundreds of" or "several" protestors when many thousands showed up.