At around 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, thousands of people gathered at Columbus Circle to begin the People’s Climate March. As the name suggests, it was intended to be call for action on climate change, with similar demonstrations taking place in cities all over the world. (The events were scheduled to almost coincide with the United Nations climate summit meeting that begins on Tuesday.) Before the start of the New York City march, organizers — who include dozens of environmental and social justice groups, as well as some unions — said they were expecting about 100,000 participants. By Sunday afternoon, they said turnout had hit 310,000.
Here’s what that looks like from above:
The huge, enthusiastic crowd that walked through midtown included a healthy sprinkling of celebrities and politicians, including Al Gore, Mayor de Blasio, Ban Ki-moon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Byrne, and many other people you have heard of.
And then there were the common folk:
Even a celebrity-filled crowd of more than 310,000 wasn’t enough to get some outlets to cover climate change. As you might expect, the Fox News homepage featured just one tiny link to a straightforward report on the march, but it wasn’t the only outlet that overlooked the event. The Sunday morning shows on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox failed to cover the march (though there was a fleeting mention on ABC’s This Week). On Sunday night, stories about the march were still featured prominently on MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Daily Beast’s homepages, but coverage was hard to find, or non-existent on the front page of several major sites including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and CNN.
Surprisingly, Conservative blogs weren’t happy about the lack of coverage in the lamestream media. Sites like NewsBusters, The Blaze, and Gatway Pundit complained that news reports tended to focus on the event’s “carnival-like” atmosphere, rather than the “rampant left-wing extremism clearly on display.” The Blaze reported that at one point a group protesting Michael Brown’s shooting sang “Fuck the Police,” and “Dozens of signs denouncing capitalism were spotted at the demonstration, often held by self-proclaimed socialists.” The liberal media doesn’t want to talk about it, but the truth is there were a few socialists at the biggest climate change rally in history.
