The Washington Post on Saturday published a series of stylized photos of some of the activists behind 71 days and counting of protests in Portland, Oregon, against racism and policing.
The photos: Each of the 12 photo subjects received a kind of superhero treatment: one image showing them in “real life” — taking out the garbage or riding a lawnmower — and a second of them posing against a white backdrop in their gas masks, goggles, bike helmets and other protest gear.
- The 2,000 word essay accompanying the images sympathetically described Portland as a city where “protests are as natural as the salmon swimming in the Willamette River” and notes that city “officials and soccer moms alike readily admit to being ‘antifa.'”
- The photo essay was published under the headline, “Trump sent agents to quell unrest. But protest is what Portland does best.”
- One of the subjects, Wall of Moms cofounder Bev Barnum, suggested she is a member of the sometimes-violent left-wing network; and an unnamed demonstrator was quoted proudly declaring himself an “anarchist.”
The reaction: Some Post readers said they were inspired by the article, with one commentator gushing, “The protesters are what is BEST about America.”
But others were appalled by what they deemed a mockery of journalistic objectivity and a celebration of violent lawlessness.
Andy Ngo, a Portland-based conservative journalist, slammed the Post for publishing “a glowing photo essay on #antifa riot fashion” amid street violence and a spike in violent crime in the city.
One Twitter user — echoing widespread frustration on the right with slanted press coverage of the protests — replied: “What has happened to modern journalism is frightening and mind-boggling.”
Someone else quoted economist Thomas Sowell’s 2016 commentary on press coverage of protests against President Donald Trump: “If the media seriously wanted to report the news — instead of spinning it — they could stop calling rioters “protesters” and stop calling terrorists ‘militants.'”
Others mocked the protesters photographed by the Post as make-believe revolutionaries, with one user saying: “Those are the most beta photos I have ever seen.”
Trust in the media: A Pew Research Center study released in January found Republicans generally distrust major news sources, and they have grown more alienated from the mainstream press over the past five years.
- Democrats, meanwhile, trust nearly three-quarters of the sources surveyed in the study, and their confidence in them has remained stabled or increased over time.
- A May 2019 analysis by the RAND Corporation determined U.S. news has become more partisan and opinionated and less fact-based over the past 30 years.
The Post’s photo essay ran on a weekend when violent protests resurfaced outside a police union building several miles north of the downtown federal courthouse, where larger groups rampaged last month.
- Protesters on Sunday night used a mortar to launch commercial grade fireworks at police, and officials said Monday that two officers were injured and 16 demonstrators were arrested.
- The previous evening, protesters managed to get into the union building and set a fire for the second time; three officers were injured, including two who were treated at a hospital and released.
As the Post put it, “Still, the protests continue. Demonstrators say they’re not finished. Getting the feds out was just one item on a lengthy to-do list.”
