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Controversy at the 2002 Chicago Media Watch Conference on Propaganda

Controversy marred the 2002 Chicago Media Watch (CMW) Conference on Propaganda, held at the Crown Center at Loyola University of Chicago on November 2, 2002. A vociferous protest of a scheduled speaker by another scheduled panelist eventually led to an expulsion and arrest.
Controversy marred the 2002 Chicago Media Watch (CMW) Conference on Propaganda, held at the Crown Center at Loyola University of Chicago on November 2, 2002. A vociferous protest of a scheduled speaker by another scheduled panelist eventually led to an expulsion and arrest.


The expelled and arrested panelist, Chris Geovanis (a member of Chicago IMC), publicly objected to CMW President Liane Casten to the scheduling of speaker Richard Baehr, former Education Director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Right before Baehr was about to speak, Geovanis loudly objected, accusing Casten of caving in and selling out. Geovanis emerged from the audience and approached the stage where Casten, Baehr, and other conference speakers stood.


Geovanis eventually returned to her seat but stood in protest during part of Baehr's talk. Geovanis eventually left the main conference hall, but Loyola police arrived to escort her out of the Crown Center and asked her to leave campus. Geovanis and others walked to the campus limits, and continued to walk until a discussion ensued on plans to form a media monitoring group more active than CMW (see announcement here). The discussion led to a pause in walking, perhaps two blocks from the campus limits. Police arrived, saying that Geovanis disobeyed a police order to leave campus, and was therefore placed under arrest.


Geovanis was scheduled as a panelist on a CMW Panel Discussion on Media Activism. Geovanis was released from jail late the same evening.


Baehr's speech, listed on the conference program as "Exceptionalism: The Attack on Israel's Right to Exist", was defended by Casten as a balance to an immediately preceding talk by Sut Jhally, professor at UMass-Amherst and director of the Media Education Foundation.


Jhally's speech, listed on the conference program as "The Occupation of the American Mind: Occupied Territory," detailed the use of media propaganda by pro-right-wing Israeli interests against American citizens to continue the Israeli military's illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and the U.S. financial and military support of the occupation.


Near the end of his talk, Jhally publicly noted the curious juxtaposition of his talk with that of a talk by an AIPAC representative, who sat onstage at the same time as Jhally. Jhally spoke at previous CMW conferences, but noted that he would return for the 2002 conference on the condition that he talk about Israel and Palestine, a topic that gets little critical scrutiny.


Richard Baehr of AIPAC was not included on the originally scheduled conference itinerary.


The CMW conference, titled "Conference on American Propaganda: Historical, Legal, and Moral Perspectives," was an all-day event at which various experts spoke on propaganda. Speakers included Bill Ayers (faculty, UIC), Leon Stein (faculty, Roosevelt University), Jennifer Van Bergen (writer for truthout.org), Matthew Rothchild (editor, The Progressive), and John McMurtry (faculty, Guelph University, Ontario).

 
 

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