Black Lives Matter in Minnesota shut down Snelling Avenue in St. Paul for four hours on Saturday and the protest movement was rewarded with massive media coverage.
The march was timed to coincide with a busy day at the Minnesota State Fair along the main thoroughfare. There were no arrests made, even though the protest march was illegally in the streets without a permit from the city of St. Paul. Instead the police gave the estimated 300-350 marchers an escort, despite the fact that some attendees were chanting anti-police slogans like: “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.” One of the protest organizers, Rashad Turner, who also interviewed with Alpha News, told Fox 9 News that some officers escorting the marchers were participating in the chant.
The national Black Lives Matter movement sprung from protests about police brutality, but the”Black Fair” protest was smaller in scope, focusing on the number of State Fair booths awarded to black business owners. Fair officials have reiterated that it’s illegal to ask for the race of a business owner on fair booth applications.
The media hyped the event beforehand and predicted turnout of 1,000 protesters. The press coverage before the event effectively promoted Black Fair– which should have increased participation.
Here’s a look at the extensive media coverage before and after the event:
KARE 11 did five stories including one called “Why Black Lives Matter protested the state fair” They even created a “Fair Protest” graphic for the occasion.
KSTP had four stories and explored the movement deeper linking a lengthy AP piece, “Black Lives Movement Experiencing Growing Pains”
CBS/WCCO News ran seven stories and had their top political reporter, Pat Kessler, do a report on their sparsely attended protest at the Governor’s mansion last evening.
Fox 9/KMSP ran five stories and sent a reporter and camera crew that live tweeted the event. They followed up with another story “Why ‘All Lives Matter’ can be offensive” and sent another reporter to cover protesters at the Governor’s mansion.
The Star Tribune ran a video along with their printed story, “Protestors call for justice in march to State Fair.” They even included a large photo gallery of the protest.
Minnesota Public Radio had eight stories on the State Fair and Governor’s mansion protests. MPR reported yesterday that there were only forty people protesting at the Governor’s residence last evening.
The Pioneer Press ran six stories on the recent Black Lives Matter protests.
For comparison’s sake, a crowd of over 1,000 attended a protest at the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul on August 22nd to protest the national organization’s involvement in selling fetal tissue. (Organizers of the event stated there were 4,500 attendees there.) Kare 11 had two stories on the event, KSTP had one, KMSP/Fox 9 had none that we could find online. WCCO reported “a crowd of thousands” at the event, but dedicated less than ninety words to the news story and no attendees were interviewed, in contrast with their stories on the Black Lives Matter protests. The Star Tribune ran a report on the well-attended Planned Parenthood protest as a “Metro Brief” while the Pioneer Press covered the protest with one article. Taxpayer-funded Minnesota Public radio didn’t cover the event per our online search efforts.
Alpha News sent our reporter to both the Black Lives Matter Black Fair protest as well as the August 22nd Planned Parenthood protest organized by Pro-Life Action ministries, reporting once on each event.
