"They're coming closer, and I'm getting scared",

Is what came as commentary from one young female reporter on the evening news. The roving group of black-clad Anarchists bent on kicking over trash cans, breaking windows and spray painting the A and Circle symbol neared the police line she stood protected behind before veering off to vandalize an unsuspecting StarBucks. For many reporters the trip to Seattle seemed like the most exciting thing they had done in their young lives since those college keggers and fraternity hijinks.

The boys seemed to take it well, talking cheerfully with tears running down their cheeks, but a few seemed a little upset that the clouds of potentially fatal gas kept interrupting commentary. At least a couple of the ladies and gentlemen of the press lost their audio links and kept talking, using cell phones. Some of them kept at their posts even without cameras to stand in front of, so that the broadcast images showed the actual street scenes instead of the familiar view of coiffed and made up talent describing the event for us.

But two women, who wanted to make a documentary of the proceedings, were instructed to leave the area. So they got into their car to leave, and were treated to an extra dose of pepper spray when they asked for directions to an area where they could set up. One of the women was able to videotape the visored officer from inside their car as he or she squirted the chemical agent at close range through the drivers' side window, rolled down just a few inches.

That the riot gear of the police officers included helmets, smoked visors, shoulder and body pads, and postage-stamp sized badges was only noticed by a foreign national writing for a local alternative weekly.

Other television journalists and their cameramen were jostled by the dreaded "anarchists", who seemed to think that the members of the Fourth Estate were actually tools of Corporate Interests, one camera lens being spray painted red. One nagging question is that the alleged anarchists, most of whom never addressed any media source, were also defined as being from Eugene, Oregon. There was never any source clearly quoted on that information, but was repeated often enough to attain status of fact.

One station, KOMO 4 of Seattle, announced that their coverage would not give any identification of protest groups or their messages, just show whatever actions were made. This policy was broadcast on the evening news before the WTO meeting began, and the peaceful march of some 35,000 union members and their supporters from around the country.

Much of the first day and evening other major stations ran continuous coverage of downtown Seattle, while Channel 4 kept with the scheduled broadcast of game shows involving spinning wheels, trivia questions, and happy winners.

by David E. Freeman

davidefreeman@yahoo.com

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