Advertisement

Opinion: We demand inevitable action!

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

In my e-mail inbox on Monday was a press release about a rally today at the U.S. Capitol by ‘hundreds of supporters of Sonia Sotomayor,’ the Supreme Court nominee whose confirmation by the Senate is as much a sure thing as future ‘Larry King Live’ segments about Michael Jackson. At the top of the release was a phrase that strikes terror into the hearts of newspaper assignment editors: ‘photo opportunity.’

I’ve reported on plenty of rallies and demonstrations in my newspaper career, beginning with an ‘anti-rat’ march in a rodent-infested Pittsburgh neighborhood. (Not sure whether the rats got the message.) More recently, I’ve covered protests outside the Supreme Court which, if the justices were true to their oath, had no influence on their decisions.

Advertisement

Like the Sotomayor rally, those protests were only nominally an exercise of the right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment ‘peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’ The not-so-ulterior motive was publicity.

But at least anti-abortion or pro-medical-marijuana demonstrators are seeking a result that is not a sure thing. The pro-Sotomayor campaigners are demanding that the Senate do what it’s going to do anyway. They won’t take yes for an answer.

A journalist shouldn’t bite the handout that feeds him, but demonstrations like this give media events a bad name. Next week: A rally to demand more earmarks.

-- Michael McGough

Advertisement