At our sister blog, Gordon points out how local media gave significantly less attention to yesterday’s anti-bank demonstration than national media did.  Andrea Frye at National People’s Action confirms this, citing not just huge on-going coverage at Huffington Post but also the Wall Street Journal, CNN and MSNBC.

Aside from Progress Illinois and Chicago-based In These Times, local coverage was anemic.  The Sun-Times ran an AP story with a quote from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka followed by a statement by the American Bankers Association to the effect that “the protestors were focusing on the wrong group of people.”  WBEZ’s account followed the same format – a quote from Tumka and a quote from anonymous “convention delegates,” saying “they don’t deserve the scorn.”

Such thin coverage gives the reader a he said-she said version which approximates “balance” but doesn’t offer enough information to evaluate the arguments.

Both stories feature the ABA’s party line – the crash wasn’t the bankers’ fault, it was those nasty mortgage brokers.  This line is absurd on its face, and as we noted here this weekend, Joe Nocera of the New York Times took the argument completely apart in a column where he interviewed the president of the ABA.  Local mainstream media consumers wouldn’t know this.

Also ignored are compelling stories of local participants.  On the stage Tuesday, you had Richard Trumka introducing Arnoldo Robles, president of the UE local at Republic Windows, as a “working class hero.”  You had Angenita Tanner talking about state budget cuts threatening her child care business, Jack Lesniewski talking about student aid cuts threatening his graduate education, and Maria Guerra talking about facing foreclosure.  And as Progress Illinois showed, many many stories among the protestors.

Instead, WBEZ featured a sidebar by a web producer completely trivializing the protest by focusing on the costume of a demonstrator who dressed up as “Downsized Man.”  And in the mighty Chicago Tribune, the complete coverage of yesterday’s events consisted of a photo of the same guy.