Article 2

Intro To Journalism
Article 2
Occupy Wall Street Kitchen To Go on Strike?


For the duration of the upcoming Halloween weekend of October 28-30th
the “People’s Kitchen” at Zuccotti Park will be enforcing a massive
cut-back in its food distribution, in what the Occupy Wall Street
protest has called an effort to “strengthen” their operations.

“Hello Occupiers and Friends!,” states a laminated flyer taped to one
of the plastic folding tables that comprises the food station at
Occupy Wall Street. “In the coming days the People’s Kitchen of Occupy
Wall Street will be initiating some changes to help us better fulfill
our mission to feed the movement.”

Although the Occupy Wall Street protest, which has now been going on
for over a month, has received significant media attention for its
sophisticated cuisine — The New York Times published an article on
October 11th lauding the kitchen efforts, titled “Want to Get Fat on
Wall Street? Try Protesting” — the People’s Kitchen announced that
fare over the three-day undertaking will be reduced to “Simple meals
(such as beans and rice, PB&J, fresh fruit).”

On October 27th, The Atlantic Wire reported that the organization’s
plan to scale-back was nothing more than a logistical initiative to
better organize the Occupied Kitchen that was being sensationalized by
the press. "I can definitely tell you that none of us are concerned
about 'freeloaders,' " said Chris O'Donnell, an organizer, to The
Atlantic Wire.

Contrary to the claims of O’Donnell and the statements formally
released by Occupy Wall Street, kitchen worker Nan Terrie said that
kicking out freeloaders was precisely the aim of the People’s Kitchen.

Terrie, who has been volunteering in the kitchen since Day 1 of the
protest, described security issues at the kitchen as being a bigger
issue than O’Donnell claimed they were.

Terrie said that aside from dealing with frequently vexing behavior
from patrons like “complaining” and “cutting in line”, she was
recently threatened with violence by a visitor to the People’s Kitchen
who was angered that the kitchen staff would not cater to his personal
food request. Terrie said that when she refused to make the man “a
special rice krispie treat”, “[He] pulled a knife on me and called me
the ‘N word’ several times."

Benedict Clouette, a worker in the People’s Kitchen, downplayed
Terrie’s concerns, saying that they were the opinions of one person
and not shared among the staff. “That’s not really the dominant tenor
of the kitchen now,” said Clouette in a phone interview.

Clouette, who said the decision to scale back on food was not a
strike, said that the primary motivation was to make the kitchen run
more efficiently, and give organizers time to reflect on what
direction the protest is headed. “Right now there’s a huge amount of
energy that just goes into running it every day, and in the morning we
don’t know who’s going to volunteer to cook... That’s not really a
sustainable practice,” added Clouette.

When asked whether the Occupy Wall Street protest would be able to
without the kitchen, Clouette said, “I think the whole shape of the
thing would probably change. Part of the occupation of Zuccotti Park
is dependant on certain types of provisions, medical attendance, food,
sometimes a comfort station.”

Reading journal 3: Cynicism vs. Healthy Skepticism

(*Sorry, I forgot to post last week, but I figured better late than never!)

Admittedly, I know pretty much nothing about global economics (or really any economics for that matter) but David Brooks’s op-ed in the Times last week, titled “The Lost Decade?” which considers the implications of a possible global financial crash, jumped out at me for some inexplicable reason. I guess it’s a good example of what we talked about in class a few weeks ago, of stories that are written both for experts and novices.

I thought that Brooks’s op-ed, though it could have easily slipped over into cynicism given the depressing nature of the topic, managed to stay “healthily skeptical” by backing up his assertions with specific examples. Brooks doesn’t try to sugarcoat the gloomy economic situation in the least (“The prognosis for next few years is bad with a chance of worse,” he says) but at the same time, he doesn’t just come in and tell us we’re all screwed so we might as well give up, either. For each complaint he lodges (and he has a lot), he offers specific evidence of why and how it has unfolded.

His biggest complaint seems to be with partisan responses to the growing crisis. “To put it in fancy terms, the crisis is an emergent condition — even more terrible than the sum of its parts,” writes Brooks. “Yet the ideologues who dominate the political conversation are unable to think in holistic ways. They pick out the one factor that best conforms to their preformed prejudices and, like blind men grabbing a piece of the elephant, they persuade themselves they understand the whole thing.” It seems here like Brooks is implying that the politicians are more concerned with sticking to party lines and regurgitating whatever party rhetoric seems faintly applicable, than with intelligently examining the situation and strategizing appropriate solutions.

He calls both parties to blame for this, saying that Democrats are too ready to name increased government spending as the be-all-end-all solution, and Republicans are too ready say the same of cutting taxes, and reducing regulation—neither of which fully addresses the scope of the problem at hand. (“To a man in love with his hammer, every problem requires a nail,” offers Brooks.)

But although Brooks certainly doesn’t hold any punches, and seems to denigrate both parties equally, I think he manages to escape sounding exactly cynical or nihilistic by balancing his own opinions with outside evidence. He includes expert opinions (he references a former deputy Treasury secretary, and quotes a foreign policy professor from Bard College) and also offers solutions of his own (“Simplify the tax code. End corporate taxes and create a consumption tax. Reshape the European Union to make it either more unified or less, but not halfway as it is now...”)

By contrast, I would compare the “skepticism” of Brooks’s article to basically anything/everything on Gawker. I think the main difference is that Gawker’s clout as a blog is basically predicated on being snarky. Even though Gawker definitely covers news stories that are important and relevant in the metropolitan area, (I'm personally a fan and read their site about ten times a day until they installed the new layout) their goal is to entertain readers more than it is to be objective. It's perfectly acceptable for them to be cynical given the specific media niche that they fill, whereas that kind of opinionated bias would never in a million years fly at harder news publications, and given that they're very different kinds of journalism that seems like an okay thing.