Mercury News Continues Misrepresentation of June UCSC Protest

Dear San Jose Mercury News,

I’m writing to voice my frustration with the Mercury News’ misrepresentation of my comments, specifically related to coverage of a June student protest that involved UCSC Chancellor Denice Denton. I don’t intend this statement for print and I don't expect a reply.

In the past few weeks, I have spoken to at least 4 different reporters with the Mercury News, all of whom were primarily interested in what occurred at a June 6 protest of ‘institutional racism and sexism’ on the campus. While I spent a considerate amount of my personal time talking each reporter through the issues and what occurred, the paper consistently misrepresented my comments and misled the public on what actually occurred at the action.

In the days leading up to the protest, both the Mercury News and the Santa Cruz Sentinel were sent a press release describing what exactly the protest was about (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/06/18272381.php). The Mercury News chose not to cover the incident, and the Sentinel only sent a photographer for a short period of time, taking one photo and leaving after a few minutes. Eventually, when the Sentinel heard that there was some sort of incident where the Chancellor was unable to move her car for a few minutes, they jumped on the opportunity to sensationalize the event, resulting in an extremely inaccurate article (http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/June/07/local/stories/13local.htm). The Sentinel, as is usual, failed to understand a multi-issued action, and specifically chose not to mention the words ‘institutional,’ ‘racism,’ or ‘sexism’ once, or anything else from the press release sent to them in advance of the protest. What was an action about the lack of institutional support for students, faculty, and workers of color was characterized as just being about custodians’ wages. If you’re really interested in what occurred on that day, please read the coverage on Santa Cruz Indymedia: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/07/47592.php

After Denton’s death, the Mercury News immediately attempted to connect the protest to the Chancellor’s rumored depression. When I first spoke with a Mercury News reporter, I did my best to detail the true occurrences of the event, but when the article "UCSC Head Falls to Death" (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/14899408.htm) came out, my words were drastically misused to effectively condemn the protest. I quote:

“After one recent event in which students surrounded her car and performed a five-minute play in support of workers and minority students, she seemed to grow increasingly fearful, said Josh Sonnenfeld, a student organizer.

``She or the university hired a security guard to be outside her campus home 24/7. She hired a bodyguard-type figure to go around with her everywhere,'' he said.”

I immediately called the reporter back and explained that the statement they attributed to me was factually inaccurate. I noted that there was ‘not a cause and effect relationship’ between the protest and the Chancellor hiring new security as Denton had stricter security for a long time prior to the protest. I further explained that I never said that the Chancellor grew increasingly fearful after the protest, but that statement was attributed to me nonetheless.

While this incident with the Mercury News may seem minor, immediately after that first article was published, bloggers and other newspapers started to correlate the Chancellor’s depression with student protests. Denton was the victim, but they needed a culprit – something that Santa Cruz’s student protesters, with their charged history, could easily be characterized as.

The Mercury News developed other speculations, such as Denton’s thyroid problem, yet still had a particular interest in the story of this June ‘affirmative diversity’ protest. I got a call from a few more of their reporters, all of them asking the same, and more details. Again, I did my best to contextualize and detail everything that has occurred, but, much like before, my quotes were taken out of context and rearranged to fit the particular motive(s) of the article.

In this morning’s front-page article, “A feeling of ‘siege,’” (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/14952474.htm) the Mercury News blatantly mischaracterized my remarks and spread misinformation to develop their story. I quote:

“Fifteen months later, the week before she requested a leave in June, more than 100 students protesting what they considered Denton's ``rhetoric'' about diversity outreach programs, barricaded her car when she tried to leave the parking lot.

``She said she had to go,'' recalled Josh Sonnenfeld, one of the protesters. But the students insisted she watch their skit. So they surrounded her car and donned paper-plate face masks.

``I can't watch this anymore. I have to go,'' Sonnenfeld recalls the chancellor saying.

It was five minutes, he said, before the students moved aside.

``It's unfortunate what happened,'' Sonnenfeld said. ``But there are a lot of pressures with being head of a large university with a very vibrant political climate.''”

To detail the factual inaccuracies of this account, I’ll lay them out one by one:

1) Students didn’t have a specific problem with words (“rhetoric”) the Chancellor used, but with the actions her administration sometimes took.

2) The protest wasn’t just about “diversity outreach programs,” it was about a whole series of issues connected under the concept of ‘institutional racism and sexism.’

3) Students, for the most part, never “barricaded her car.” Had the Mercury News been at the protest, they would have known this. Again, I’d urge you to look back at the Santa Cruz Indymedia coverage, including photos of the incident, to see the truth.

4) Students never “surrounded her car” – they formed a circle in the driveway, with the skit performers in the middle. The car was off to the side and Denton was standing on the perimeter of the circle watching the performance with the other students. Bradley’s photo in today’s Mercury News even shows this.

5) “Paper-plate face masks”? You’ve got to be kidding me! There were just a couple of students that had two paper plates with smiley faces drawn on them for props in their skit.

6) After the Chancellor said that she really needed to go and couldn’t watch the skit anymore, students moved the crowd out of the way so her car could go. It took 5 minutes to move everyone, mainly due to the size of the group, and then Denton was off to her next appointment.

7) When I say, “it’s unfortunate what happened,” I’m referring to the Chancellor’s tragic death, not the protest.

So, effectively, what we have here is the Mercury News mischaracterizing and decontextualizing almost every use of my words. They build an image of an unruly protest, with students wearing paper-plate masks (to hide their identity?) and refusing to get out of the way, while in actuality, the protest was peaceful and relatively short. The Mercury News would have known this if they had decided to attend.

Ironically, this morning’s article contained an Indymedia photo from the ‘affirmative diversity’ action that shows Chancellor Denton standing amongst a crowd of protesters, watching the skit. The caption mentions nothing about the fact that this is the protest that the Mercury News was writing negatively about, merely saying, “Denton shows up at a student demonstration at UC-Santa Cruz in June supporting maintaining a diverse faculty.” You’ll notice that in this photo, the Chancellor, along with students and workers, is watching the skit. Another one of Bradley’s photos (http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2006/06/07/uncomfortable_6-6-06.jpg) shows this as well. Yet, even with photographic evidence to the contrary, the article still harshly mischaracterizes the tone and motives of the protest.

I hope that in future coverage, the Mercury News will do their research and commit to factually accurate quotations and descriptions, rather than sensationalization and misinformation.

Sincerely,
Josh Sonnenfeld