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constitutional rights, they win, and the newspapers will praise
them; if the protesters fail to run amok, they lose.”
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Restoring Order
Highly Trained Professionals
One media strategy for restoring order is to focus on the
police as highly trained and disciplined professionals whose
difficult job it is to keep the peace and protect the people by
outwitting protesters. This strategy figured heavily in coverage
of security at the IMF talks in Washington, D.C., in the wake of
the police debacle in Seattle,
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and it continued on into coverage
of the WEF meeting in New York. Covering the police beat for the
New York Times, William K. Rashbaum and Al Baker had high praise
for the strategic planning of the force: “Using a combination of
intelligence, a large deployment of police officers and careful
planning, the department seemed to be everywhere at all times—
and, much to the chagrin of he protesters, seemed to be able to
anticipate their every move.”
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Rashbaum and Baker commended the
cops for claiming the streets first, flooding the area around the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel with thousands of officers, surrounding
demonstrators with police motorcycles, and monitoring protesters
with television cameras mounted high above the Waldorf and on a
police helicopter.
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When the media departed from their representation of police
as security strategists, it was usually to grace the long arm of
the law with a firm but gentle father’s hand. The police were
often depicted in the press as benign parental figures,
Convention