IMF & World Bank Protests, Washington D.C.

Mainstream Media Representation

As with the poor Seattle coverage, the media have concentrated more on the sensationalism.

• Again the mainstream ignored the in-depth issues around the IMF and World Bank and why they are being criticized by so many around the world.
• As with Seattle, the mainstream media also ignores the protesting of lack of democracy and global justice in the current process to achieve globalization and in the major institutions to realize it.
• According to the IMF’s own official statement, they themselves did not provide press accreditation to public access TV, community radio, nor student or academic publications to attend our meetings. See this alert from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting for more information. In fact, the Washington, D.C. corporate media, for example, sensationalized the traffic disruptions and policing efforts as the headlines and then occasionally mention the meeting, the protests and the reasons.
  • A small number of people unfortunately did clash with police, but compared to the thousands of peaceful protestors the media’s coverage has so far been disproportionate.
  • In fact there was little discussion on the police tactics, who
    • "used illegitimate preemptive arrests
    • set out a huge restricted area around the World Bank and IMF keeping activists from even the vicinity of their focus of dissent
    • invaded and closed the Convergence Center as intimidation
    • used a mixture of arrests, aggression, and sometimes even forbearance in an effective brew to try to channel outcomes
    • and worked hard to goad protesters into acting out, though unsuccessfully"
    as summarized by Michael Albert in a reflection on the week long protests.
  • (It is interesting to note how some US Republicans were shocked at the aggressive police raid in Miami to take Elian Gonzalez to return him to his father. They commented that such tactics are typical of somewhere like Cuba, not the United States. However, there wasn’t even a slight comment to that effect when there was an equally, if not more brutal, crackdown on more people at Seattle and Washington D.C. protests.)
• With little debate between IMF/World Bank officials/spokespersons and major protestor representatives in the news and very short sound-bites from each side, the issues were not covered and presented very well.
• However, to be fair to the mainstream media, compared to Seattle, they did at least look into some of the concerns that the protestors were raising a bit more, which is a good indication of the positive effects of the protests.
• Often, the majority of the experts interviewed were economists who support the current policies. There had been a few interviews with economists critical of current policies, but hardly any with human rights activists, subject experts from developing countries, or others who could also provide valid insights and perspectives into the issues at hand and the effects on societies of so many countries that are affected by the decisions and policies made at the IMF and World Bank (and supportive industrialized countries and multinational corporations).

There was some media coverage that tried to look at the issues and criticisms of the IMF and World Bank, and while for a moment it was hopeful that more people in the United States, as well as around the world, would be more aware of the issues the coverage proved not to be too indepth and without sustained analysis. Once the meeting was over, so was the concern it seemed.

The US is influential at the IMF and World Bank. As mentioned in the structural adjustment part of this web site, the IMF and World Bank are largely controlled and owned by the developed nations such as USA, Germany, UK, Japan etc. The US, for example, controls 17 to 18% of the voting power at the IMF and when an 85% majority is required for a decision, the US effectively have veto power. The World Bank is also 51% funded by the U.S. Treasury. (See this site’s section on Structural Adjustment for more details and sources on this.)

A continued rising awareness within the US would hopefully help stimulate increased debate with a wider range of discourse. American citizens are honest and caring people. However, if the mainstream media, from where a large functioning aspect of democracy proves to not provide all relevant information, the opinions and decisions of the American people are also affected. Hence their ability to hold their leaders properly accountable is also affected.

For more on media portrayal and coverage, you could start with the following:

• The Independent Media Center is a collective of media producers offering non-corporate grassroots coverage. You could start there to find out about the actual coverage.
• The MediaChannel has a good section of articles.
  • TV Can’t Tell You How It Is by Robin Andersen, presented on the MediaChannel, is a very good summary of the media coverage of the protests.
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has a section on the IMF & World Bank
  • Media Distortion of World Bank/IMF Protests Starts Early is an example of some of the articles from the above-mentioned FAIR site.
• Protests in Washington Clash with Media Spin by media critic Norman Solomon
• When Corporate Media Cover Independent Media also by Norman Solomon, who starts off During the recent protests in Washington against the World Bank and IMF, the leading cable news network became fascinated with independent media. Journalism free of huge economic interests — what a concept!
• IMF, World Bank Bar Independent Journalists From Events
• Democracy Now has provided on-going grassroots coverage as well.
  • The April 2000 archives has the continued coverage of the various issues and aspects
  • As an example, the April 18 radio broadcast was about some of the issues and concerns around the policing and their tactics.
• Taking A16 Seriously by Jason Vest, points out that A16 proved that the mainstream media is not averse to reporting a good story, even when the story involves protests against corporate global power. But what it did prove is that the mainstream buck stops well before deep, historical analysis.

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More Information

The following sources provide good information about the meeting. It is also a useful set of resources to see the criticisms of current globalization models and current forms of free trade practices.

• Mobilization for Global Justice". This is the main web site about the process. It it brought together by three main organizations who also have a lot of information:
  • The 50 Years Is Enough campaign is a coalition of 205 organizations dedicated to the profound transformation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
  • Global Exchange, a human rights organization dedicated to promoting environmental, political and social justice around the world.
  • Direct Action Network, a decentralized, directly democratic organization working to create a movement to overcome corporate globalization and all forms of oppression.
• CorpWatch have a section on globalization and the role of the two Bretton Woods institutions.
• Global Economic Crisis from Z magazine provides a lot of in-depth and background articles on the problems of the current forms of globalization.
• This Web Site’s section on Poverty
• The Third World Network takes a look at liberalization
• Some articles from Foreign Policy in Focus:
  • Structural Adjustment Programs & Poverty Reduction Strategy
  • The IMF and Good Governance
  • IMF: Case of a Dead Theory Walking
• UNCTAD: Time to Lead, Time to Challenge the WTO This article suggests that the United Nations Conference on Trade And Development could be a more appropriate and inclusive body for issues of international trade and development. As the article says, UNCTAD may not have the material resources of these institutions, but it has something that the billions of dollars of the World Bank and IMF could not buy: legitimacy among developing countries.
• Fighting Corporate Sponsored Globalization, by Robin Hanhel
• The DC Cop Crackdown looks at some of the police tactics leading up to the protests, especially given the events in Seattle, earlier.
• The IMF & World Bank Campaign section from OneWorld provides more articles from other organizations as well.
• The Bretton Woods Project, in their own words, works to monitor and reform the World Bank and IMF. It tracks key policy statements and reports, and provides critiques and early warnings used by non-governmental organisations across the world. They also show that it isn’t just Washington D.C. seeing protests of this nature. In other countries around the world, people are protesting. Sometime the number of people who turn out are even larger. For an example, you can see towards the end of section 2 of this update.
• What I learned at the world economic crisis. The Insider by Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist at the World Bank, until the beginning of 2000, when he resigned, harshly criticizing the IMF.
• Time to Rein in Global Finance by William Greider, suggests that while the IMF and World Bank are problematic, a reform, rather than complete closure could be the way foreward (afterall, they were created with a more positive goal in mind initially, before their roles changed to promote Friedman’s neoliberalism in the 1970s) and that they are only a part of the global financial system that needs to be addressed.
• Growth May Be Good for the Poor — But are IMF and World Bank Policies Good for Growth? is a detailed critique of the World Bank’s report showing that globalization is good for the poor. It claims to show that growth generally does benefit the poor and that anyone who cares about the poor should favor the growth-enhancing polices of good rule of law, fiscal discipline, and openness to international trade. However, there have been many criticisms about the report for making far too many assumptions and not considering many interrelated issues.

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