Protest on Press Baron’s Ball

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday June 05, 2003 15:11 by GR - GR globalise_resistance at yahoo dot com

Bring your top hats, monocles and copies of “the Scum!”

Globalise Resistance, an Irish anti capitalist coalition that has just returned from the G8 protests in Geneva last weekend, is calling for a picket on the World Newspapers Congress this Monday June 9th. The World Newspapers Congress is bringing together the major editors and corporations behind the global corporate print media industry in the RDS this Monday at 12 noon, in a ceremony to be opened by Bertie and Bono.

PRESS RELEASE

Joe Carolan, GR Spokesperson-
“Many people feel that the corporate media present a biased view of the world. Anti war activists feel that our side of the argument was marginalised in favour of the pro war pundits- many newspapers sided with Bush and Blair’s hollow arguments for war on Iraq- but where are the WMDs? The myth making power of corporate media was seen by many as pro war propaganda, with only a few principled journalists like John Pilger or Paul Foot cutting against the mainstream.”

“But it is not only wartime propaganda that w are protesting against- Print Media also re inforces many stereotypes and myths in daily life about the role of women, the status of refugees and asylum seekers, and the validity of workers taking strike action to defend jobs and services against privatisation. Corporate print media is not a free press- huge corporations like Rupert Murdoch’s News International, Tony O Reilly’s Independent Newspapers and Lord Conrad Black’s Express Group are part and parcel of an economic system that puts people before profit- indeed all three corporations have been involved in attacks on their own journalists and printers unions.”

On Monday at 12 noon, GR will picket the opening ceremony of the World Newspapers Congress at the RDS. That evening at 8pm, there will be a loud and colourful demonstration outside the reception being held for the WNC at the Guinness Storehouse in James Street. Top hats, monocles and copies of the Scum will abound at the Press Barons Ball!

Joe Carolan-
“Trade unionists who have been vilified as dinosaurs and militants, asylum seekers and refugees who have been demonised as scroungers, women who feel that the media peddles sexist stereotypes of their bodies, will join anti capitalists who believe we need an alternative radical press, a true free press from the grassroots.”

More info-
Joe 087 9032281

http://www.wan-press.org/
http://www.unisys.com/media/news_a_events/all__events/wan__56th__world__newspapers__congress.htm