Home / The Canary / Zack Polanski calls out BBC’s woeful protest coverage

Zack Polanski calls out BBC’s woeful protest coverage

Zack Polanski calls out BBC's woeful protest coverage


Saturday 28 March saw a significant anti-far right protest take place in London. According to Green Party leader Zack Polanski, however, you probably wouldn’t realise this if you’d been locked to the BBC:

Zack Polanski — Numbers

The Guardian piece Zack Polanski links to above notes:

Organisers say half a million are taking part – though police disagree

Getting an accurate picture of the number of people attending a march is always difficult, but today’s organisers say they believe half a million people have gathered in London.

Rally co-organiser Kevin Courtney, chairman of the Together Alliance coalition, told crowds gathered on Whitehall:

“Our estimate is now that there are half a million people on this demonstration – the biggest demonstration ever against the far right. And it gives us all confidence to carry on. Thank you very much.”

The Met Police say their initial estimate is more like 50,000 people. They concede, however, that it is hard to get an accurate number as marchers are so dispersed throughout central London.

Polanski was a speaker at the protest:

While the BBC did cover the protest, it’s fair to say that other protests have received significantly more attention. A key example of this was the far-right ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protest, which saw about 150,000 people hit the streets of London. An example of the BBC’s extended coverage was this piece in which they interviewed attendees to understand why they attended the Tommy Robinson-linked event.

As we previously reported, Generation Remigration spoke at Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom. ‘Remigration’ is the plan to mass deport migrants and their descendants from European countries. And as we said at the time:

We’re not quite sure how that will work in Britain given the continuous influxes of populations we’ve experienced since the Roman Empire, except we are sure, obviously – they’re talking about deporting Black and brown people.

Attention economy

Beyond the BBC, the Unite the Kingdom rally sent shockwaves through the UK media. This was because it was the largest far-right rally in years. Despite this – as Polanski said – even larger rallies regularly fail to capture media attention. This is especially true when they’re linked to issues that the establishment opposes, such as the liberation of Palestine.

Polanski is right to fight for all the attention this movement can get, because lord knows the media won’t offer it from the goodness of their hearts.

Featured image via Richard Burgon





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