By: Joe Strupp The Olympian in Olympia, Wash., which has been a strong critic of the Iraq war on its editorial page, took a hard line with anti-war protesters who have resorted to violence in opposing use of a local port to ship military equipment.
In Thursday's editions, the paper printed the names of all 58 arrested protesters on Page One, while the editorial page objected to the protester's approach that led to the arrests.
"There is a curiosity among people of who the protesters are," Managing Editor Jerry Wakefield said about the front-page name list. "This is the most that have been arrested here in protests in recent memory." He said there was little discussion about publicizing the names so prominently: "Not a great deal of debate."
The managing editor said several of his staffers were hit with pepper spray during Tuesday's protests, which led to the majority of arrests, while a videographer was hit with what was described as a "pepper spray bullet." None were seriously hurt.
The paper drew attention months ago for a strong anti-war editorial. Thursday's editorial reiterated the stance against the war, but firmly took protesters to task for "blocking roads, dragging debris into the middle of downtown streets, breaking windows, destroying public property, damaging police cars and hurling rocks at police," saying, "they clearly crossed the line."
Wakefield said the paper has put at least two or three reporters, along with a videographer and all four staff photographers, on the story that began soon after the shipments started Nov. 5.
Online, the paper has also been updating the story regularly, while posting photos and at least a dozen videos of the protests and police activities. Nearly 600 reader online comments have come in during just the past two days.
"Ever since the Iraq War started and the military started using our ports, there have been protests," Wakfield told E&P. . "This is certainly the largest."
A list of what editors termed "non-lethal weapons" used by police, and descriptions of each, also was placed on the Web site.
"This is a community where it is very unusual for police to use any kind of weapon," Wakefield explained. "Police are pretty restrained."
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here