With the bosses media foaming at the mouth over the throwing of a bit
of paint at the flash car being used to drive the Prince of Wales and
his wife to another shindig (no cuts here then), we reproduce an article
written for the Militant Student website just before the marches on Thursday which deals with the role played by the big business-owned press and media.
With the bosses media foaming at the mouth over the throwing of a bit of paint at the flash car being used to drive the Prince of Wales and his wife to another shindig (no cuts here then), we reproduce an article written for the Militant Student website just before the marches on Thursday which deals with the role played by the big business-owned press and media. By concentrating on the activities of a bare handfull of those on the demonstration on Thurday they have provided a backdrop to the decision by the police to witchunt those on the demo – guitly or not – and tar all those who went as criminals, thereby diverting – again – attention from the shameful (and far more serious) act of vandalism carried out by those MPs who voted for the increase.The NUS must organise to ensure that those students who are penalised, either by the police or the college/school authorities are fully defended against any action by the authorities.
It comes as no surprise that the
recent student demonstrations against the proposed raising the tuition
fees cap to £9000 and the simultaneous decimation of University funding
have caught the attention of the media. Neither should it shock us to
see that in their reports the media largely focus on the violence of a
minority while quietly marginalizing the fact that these demonstrations
signify the beginning of the beginning of biggest student movement for a
generation.
Statements such as ‘a demonstration against tuition fees by tens of
thousands of students and lecturers descended into violence today’ in
the Telegraph are deliberately misleading. The reality is that that no
more than a few hundred demonstrators were inside Millbank out of a
protest of over 50,000. As socialists we must ask ourselves what is the
true reason behind these attacks on the student movement.
It is true that a minority of protestors did become involved in
violent activities; at the first protest in the vandalism of Tory HQ,
and at the second protest in the ‘destruction’ of a police van
(conveniently abandoned in the middle of a kettled group of protestors).
These events are the natural expression of students anger in the face
of what amounts to the wholesale attack on our higher education system
and the complete lack of leadership from the NUS. The reality is that
these events are nothing in comparison to the real violence that the
coalition government and their police lackeys wish to wreak upon our
society.
The fact that these events have become the focus of the press
coverage ably demonstrates the role that the media plays in our society.
Fundamentally the media act to protect the interests of the ruling
class by attacking the interest of workers and students in favour of
bankers and the rich.
In common with other sectors of the economy the media is owned by an
increasingly small number of incredibly rich people. Rupert Murdoch,
owner of News Corp, dominates UK media through his newspapers the Times,
the News of the World and the Sun as well as TV network Sky and has an
estimated wealth of $6.2 billion. Should it be any surprise that his
newspapers so virulently defend the interests of the ruling class? Even
the publicly funded BBC has members of the ruling class sitting at its
head and hence regularly attacks trade unionists (not least its own
striking journalists) in the name of political ‘neutrality’. As Marx
said, the ruling ideas in any society are the ideas of its’ ruling
class’
We must remember that fundamentally any criticism of the student
protests by the media is due to their class interests. The ruling class
understand only too well the threat that this student movement poses to
their plans to pass on the bill for the financial crisis to ordinary
people. That is why they are making every effort to undermine and smear
the students in order to prevent sympathy and support from the mass of
society. This is done in exactly the same way in their reporting of
strike action, for example accusing the firefighters of ‘reckless
irresponsibility’ and ‘intimidation and violence’.
However despite the best efforts of the media students continue to
receive support from workers at home and protestors as far away as
Greece. Now is not the time to stop, the events of the past few weeks
are only the beginning and we must build on this support to create a
mass movement of students and workers united against the cuts.
