Friday, April 30, 2004

Ohio Protest

a reader writes in:

There were about fifty people at the WSYX protest at 5:00 tonight, pretty good considering that it's pouring rain here in Central Ohio. The reading of names of service members killed in Iraq did occur, with volunteer readers trading off at a podium. Many of the casualties were represented only by their ID numbers, since their losses are so recent. Protestors were refused access to the public right-of-way in front of WSYX by Columbus Police and were diverted to the side of the station. That actually was to our advantage, since the station's call letters were clearly visible as a result. Several people carried signs and got a solid response from rush hour traffic with waves and honks- "Why is ABC 6 afraid of Ted Koppel?" and "Censorship is UnAmerican" were on two of them. At least two other local TV stations did on-camera interviews of protestors, along with the Columbus Dispatch and a stringer from the Washington Post. During the protest, we found out that the Ohio News Network (Ohio's cable version of CNN and affiliated with one of WSYX's local competitors) will be broadcasting Nightline statewide tonight, in response to many angry phone calls. Many thanks to JB for organizing this protest!