At the G20 protests, there was one group of people awaiting the action more eagerly than the anarchists. Cameras at the ready, press passes dangling around their necks, some with PRESS labelled hard hats and knee pads, the media of the world were ready for… well, it appears the media isn’t really sure what it was witnessing.
 
In the days leading up to the protest, some editors pushed “pointless protest” goading through letter pages and opinion columns. Mostly, it was name calling that even an eight year-old would call childish. Expected and seen at the protest were “Soap dodgers”, a “rent-a-mob” (surely the most redundant name for an anti-capitalist protest), “thugs”, “do-gooders” (which begs the question since when was doing good an insult?), “idiots”, a “bunch of thickos“, “wasters”, a “need-a-job-brigade” (because anyone not at work on a Wednesday must be unemployed) “dreadlocked trust fund kids” (again, is having dreadlocks an insult?) “wannabes” (they wannabe… what?), “a rabble of lost ex-public school kids and university drop-outs”, “alcoholics, drug addicts and derelicts”. A big thank you to readers and journalists of thelondonpaper, The Times Online, The Mail Online, The Sun online and The Telegraph Online and my student newspaper for all those constructive labels.

 
After the protests, the activists serious PR problem increased. “We’re not all like them, Mr President”, the Sun declared with it’s front page pictures of smiling Obama and a male rioter kicking an RBS window. “We’re not all like him” would have been a more accurate headline. “To sum up their contradictory message, one “anti-capitalist” campaigner was SELLING whistles for a pound a go” - a sentence from The Sun which sums up the “pointless protest” bandwagon. It's Us versus Them, that all-inclusive pronoun that turns roughly four thousand individuals into something with a hive-mind. We weren’t even capable of walking properly - “packs of protesters lurch through the city”, was another line from The Sun. Even the activist friendly paper The Guardian was unhappy with the protest, which made “it easy” to be cynical, easy to have all protesters “marked stupid hippies”. A stupid hippy being... well... a rather vague label.

 
What of the police? Do we believe The Guardian‘s “Riot police clash with protesters” or The Daily Mail‘s “mobs turn on the police”? “Police repression” (The Guardian) or “patient policemen” (The Sun)? The “kettle”, or “cordon”, or “coral”, has become a point of contention. Four thousand people were kept fixed in a cramped open area on a warm day. Despite a multi-million pound security operation, no ambulances were on hand within the cordon and there was no way of getting anything to eat or drink. There was room to move about and to sit down, but the police declared the area sealed by an “absolute cordon”. No press, no bystanders and no activists allowed in or out.
 
But the real money shots, the real juice of the story, was to be had with the day’s violence. Despite what seemed like a ratio of four journalists for every one activist, the media has become reliant on about six photos to illustrate the “violence”. All of the four broken windows of the Royal Bank of Scotland have now become famous, as has one unlucky red headed man who took a baton to the noggin. The day’s worst casualty was the protester who died from a heart attack. According to The Sun, “At least one police officer was left covered in blood, while another was coated in red powder” - the horror, the horror! The Daily Mail was keen to blame “the anarchist mob… at the heart of the violence”. For the Guardian, two journalists “hold the police responsible for the violence”. The Economist couldn’t understand the fuss; “from (media) headlines and descriptions, you would think full-scale riots had broken out”. Confused yet? I am, and I was there.

 
For the 3,900 odd people not taking part in the thin line of aggression between the police and anarchists, the day was mostly enjoyable. There was music and a carnival atmosphere with a serious message of dissatisfaction with the banking system. Thousands of people had chosen to express their anger the old fashioned way, not through Facebook or blogging but by actually expressing it in person! How quaint! Multicoloured slogans, from Drop Books Not Bombs to Feed The Poor, added some colour to the grey face of the City. I even saw children blowing bubbles. Bubbles? Not the same selling power as blood, unfortunately.
 

All photography by Patch Cordwell, videotographer with Arts London News.