25.04.2018, Washington.
US media outlets have been consistently ignoring the wave of anti-war protests which has been unfolding across the country after the missile strike on Syria, American studies expert Arystan Siraliev said on April 24 in an interview to a correspondent from the Rossa Primavera Information Agency.
The anti-war rally in Chicago, which gathered hundreds of participants, and which was covered in articles and even video reports by publications and news channels from China, Russia, Iran, and Israel, has remained absolutely unnoticed by the US media, both nation-wide and local.
“However, protest actions as such are not routinely sidestepped in the US. On the contrary, the media widely cover protests over the strengthening gun control, racial issues, and LGBT rights. The fact that anti-war protests are not covered by the newspapers and news programs suggests that a deliberate decision was made not to attract attention to them,” the American studies expert shared his opinion.
“Meanwhile, to my knowledge, protest marches and rallies after the missile attack on April 14 have taken place in at least 12 US cities, from Boston and Washington to Los Angeles and Seattle. Now comes Chicago,” Siraliev added.
According to the expert, the recent actions demonstrate the presence of anti-war attitudes in American society as well as people who are ready to express them.
“But it is also clear that participants of the American anti-war movement cannot hope for the corporate media to become their allies. They cannot seriously place their hope in local newspapers either, because the latter often have the same stakeholders as the nation-wide publications. The only option is to develop their own media resources more actively.”
On the night from April 13 to 14, the US, France, and the UK launched 103 cruise missiles at Syrian territory; 32 of them reached their targets. Prior to the attack, the major Western media unfolded an information campaign accusing the Syrian authorities of using chemical weapons against civilians in the city of Duma. Independent media outlets have disproven these accusations, but unfortunately, only after the strike.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
