2008 Woodie Awards
Protestor Tasered, message ignored
Will Linton
Issue date: 10/8/07 Section: National Voice
On September 17, Andrew Meyer was Tasered after taking up too much microphone time at a John Kerry forum held at the University of Florida.
Meyer, a student at the university, stood up to ask Sen. Kerry a question and then started yelling, prompting police officers at the forum to drag him away from the microphone and Taser him, despite repeated protests from Kerry and Meyer himself.
Video of the incident shows Meyer being wrestled to the ground by policemen, all the while asking, "What did I do wrong?" and begging, "Don't Tase me!"
The officers' treatment of Meyer is a revealing example of our society's suppression of free speech, but what's more revealing is the media's coverage of the incident.
CNN.com, for instance, devoted the majority of its coverage of the incident to the idea that Meyer was a prankster, casting only a cursory glance at the question of whether the officers' response was appropriate and lawful.
Granted, Meyer is reported to have become "lighthearted" and was "laughing" as the police drove him to the detention center. He told the officers that he wasn't mad at them, and that he knew they were just doing their job.
But such a characterization of the event ignores Meyer's intended message, which he explicitly states on his website: that our society's rules are so strict they suffocate self-expression.
A public forum with a politician and students in a dialogue about politics would have been a perfect place to show this.
Meyer's targets were not the individual officers - they were acting within the law; rather, his targets were the authority and society that created that law, and the corrupt mindset behind it.
Ironically, Meyer's own take on the media seems to foreshadow their coverage of his story. "The news is designed to keep viewers watching and sedated and not thinking bad thoughts about America," he writes.
After the incident, Sen. Kerry stated that, "In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way."
Well, maybe we'll start seeing more of this. But if Meyer is right, and the media is irresponsible, we'll have to pay very close attention to the headlines.
Meyer, a student at the university, stood up to ask Sen. Kerry a question and then started yelling, prompting police officers at the forum to drag him away from the microphone and Taser him, despite repeated protests from Kerry and Meyer himself.
Video of the incident shows Meyer being wrestled to the ground by policemen, all the while asking, "What did I do wrong?" and begging, "Don't Tase me!"
The officers' treatment of Meyer is a revealing example of our society's suppression of free speech, but what's more revealing is the media's coverage of the incident.
CNN.com, for instance, devoted the majority of its coverage of the incident to the idea that Meyer was a prankster, casting only a cursory glance at the question of whether the officers' response was appropriate and lawful.
Granted, Meyer is reported to have become "lighthearted" and was "laughing" as the police drove him to the detention center. He told the officers that he wasn't mad at them, and that he knew they were just doing their job.
But such a characterization of the event ignores Meyer's intended message, which he explicitly states on his website: that our society's rules are so strict they suffocate self-expression.
A public forum with a politician and students in a dialogue about politics would have been a perfect place to show this.
Meyer's targets were not the individual officers - they were acting within the law; rather, his targets were the authority and society that created that law, and the corrupt mindset behind it.
Ironically, Meyer's own take on the media seems to foreshadow their coverage of his story. "The news is designed to keep viewers watching and sedated and not thinking bad thoughts about America," he writes.
After the incident, Sen. Kerry stated that, "In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way."
Well, maybe we'll start seeing more of this. But if Meyer is right, and the media is irresponsible, we'll have to pay very close attention to the headlines.
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