June 08, 2004
Nearby Sea Island is hosting leaders from across the world as a part of the G8 Summit.
Protesters and much of the press, alike are about 60 miles north of there in Savannah. But many protesters appear to have stayed home, which leaves the press taking pictures of each other.
Well, at least with one exception.
E Jane Dickson of the UK's Independent, apparently with nothing good to say, is having fun inventing negative spin on the gathering and the setting.
...it was announced a year ago that President Bush would be hosting the 2004 G8 Summit on Sea Island (Sea Island as in cotton, as in slaves)...See what I mean?...around half the islands' residents have evacuated, scared silly by the double, and largely undifferentiated, threats of international terrorism and violent protest.
He has just heard a rumour that 2,000 body bags have been delivered to the clapboard Chamber of Commerce across the road from the bookstore. This intelligence is passed around like a joint at a fortysomething party, a delicious whiff of recreational danger. Five minutes later, one of the island's fire chiefs drops by, fresh from a briefing. It's not a rumour. The body bags are here, together with a refrigerated lorry to take away the corpses. "I liked it better when it was a rumour," says Larry.
The entire Independent article reads like that, chock full of quotes and anecdotes, carefully crafted to make Georgia and Georgians look like backwoods hicks.
The article quickly glosses over the fact that St. Simons is a high-end resort community, and that many of the residents are not full-time residents. The article goes out of it's way to suggest that the community is "under siege" by the confab, when, if anything, it's under siege by reporters like Dickson, desperate for some kind of controversy or action to report on. All that's left is to either report on the sea turtles of the coastal beaches, or make stuff up.
Guess which one Dickson chose?
Posted by: mhking at
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Posted by: Fausta at June 09, 2004 04:26 AM (WhoVr)
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