The 3 mistakes media are making in covering Occupy Wall Street protests

Poynter.org
Journalists have found the ’60s version of “dirty hippies” with beards at the Occupy Wall Street protests; they’re interviewing “grungy looking people or people with dreadlocks or people beating drums,” says Columbia University professor Todd Gitlin. They’re also framing stories with a “law and order” bias so that arrests make news, but non-criminal events are less noteworthy. The sociologist tells Mallary Jean Tenore the media focus on events rather than the big picture. “[Social] movements are ragged — they’re patched together, and they’re improvised, and if you want to size up where they’re going, you’ve got to talk to a range of people and decide what’s relevant.” || Related: Reporters have been romanticizing the protests as akin to the turbulent ’60s (NY Post) | Breslin compares OWS to Civil Rights movement (Capital New York) | Chat with Todd Gitlin and Jack Shafer: How to report more meaningful stories about Occupy Wall Street protests