The media and the Occupy Wall Street protesters

Dr. Bob Hurt at the Occupy Phoenix march Oct. 14, 2011

Occupy Wall Street celebrated its one-month anniversary last week, and it doesn’t look like the protesters and occupiers in New York are leaving any time soon.

Since the movement began, similar Occupy rallies have popped up in cities around the world. A lot of media coverage of the protesters, at least initially, seemed to focus on the crazier characters in the crowd.

Whether it was intentional on the part of the media outlets to try and marginalize the protests or if the characters just made for good television, it soon became clear that the Occupy protests were populated with a wildly diverse crowd.

That point certainly held true at the Occupy Phoenix march Oct. 14, 2011 and the next day for the beginning of the official rally. A closer look shows that the protesters are a lot more diverse than one might suspect.

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