A tale of two rallies. (Up front: news and opinion from independent minds).

Question: how do you make 100,000 people invisible? Answer: call the New York Times.

That in a nutshell is the all-too-predictable tale of the April 20, 2002, Washington, D.C., "Stop the War" mobilization for peace and global justice. Four separate rallies drew protesters to D.C. that day. One, at the Washington Monument, organized by a broad coalition of anti-war groups, called for an end to the so-called War on Terrorism, both at home and abroad. On stage, people spoke out against our new war in Colombia, U.S. military adventurism in Central Asia, the U.S.-financed Israeli incursions into Palestinian cities, and human and civil rights violations carried out under the banner of anti-terrorism.

Within earshot, across from the White House at the Ellipse, another group held much the same rally but with different speakers. At the World Bank's Washington headquarters, anti-corporate globalization protesters--ringed by a perimeter of postmodern riot-turtle-costumed police--sought to re-ignite the global democracy movement that was derailed in the wake of the September 11, 2001, flipout. At the Washington Hilton, Palestinians and Jews gathered together to protest a meeting of pro-Israel groups.

All four of these groups coordinated their events and simultaneously led marches through the streets of Washington, with all four groups converging at Freedom Plaza in front of the Capitol at about 3:00 PM for a massive rally. Given the recent Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory, the Israel-Palestine war dominated the afternoon rally, with protesters and speakers calling for an immediate secession of hostilities and an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories.

I've relived this day again and again over the years. The rallies. The banners. The endless chanting and shouting. The drumming. The bubbles. The puppets. These demonstrations are Mardi Gras-like festivals. But they usually occur at our darkest hours. Three Mile Island melts. Jimmy Carter brings back draft registration. Ronald Reagan slashes social funding and pumps up his porky military machine. Daddy Bush heats up his oil wars and launches a few vendettas against his old CIA drug-running buddies. Bill Clinton initiates a corporate orgy of industry-authored labor- and environment-slashing trade pacts. And finally there is Baby Bush's after-the-coup inauguration ball. The situation always seems hopeless. But being in the company of good, caring, angry, loving, screaming, fed-up, optimistic idealists always breeds a bit of hope.

And, yeah, by now we all know the script. Travel all night. March all day. Can't believe your eyes. Think we're on the brink of changing the world. Rush home (or to someone's home, anyone's home) to watch the news--and nothing. Grab a newspaper the next morning--and nothing. No mention of the tens of thousands of kindred souls who just launched a political new age. No shaking, quaking meanies running for cover. Nothing. Just the same old mindless chatter on the evening news.

So when I woke up in Washington on April 21 and grabbed the New York Times and found virtually no coverage of the previous day's rallies, I wasn't surprised. In fact, at a speaking gig a week before the D.C. actions, I predicted there would be little or no national coverage. I make a lot of political predictions and I'm usually right--though honestly I'd often rather be wrong. I'm not a seer. I'm just not a moron. If you see something happen ten times, it's a safe bet it'll happen an eleventh time. It's called making book. The corporate media won't give honest coverage to anti-corporate activists. And when the national press corps is genuflecting toward the White House, shamelessly acting as wartime cheerleaders instead of wartime journalists, don't expect them to cover your anti-war demonstration.

Folks are often pretty upset when confronted with the reality that not even 100,000 of us screaming in unison will be listened to. One person asked me, "If you know in advance the media won't cover the demonstration, then why do you go?" The answer is simple. We're not dancing for the media. We go because we have to go. Fighting against injustice is celebrating the dignity of human life. We go because we know we went, and that's good enough.

Yes, such censorship is toxic to a democracy. When people exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and are ignored, they often feel disenfranchised. Unheard cries lead to apathy. In rare and extreme cases they lead to violence. Both apathy and violence are lethal to a democracy. By ignoring peaceful demonstrations, no matter the cause, the mainstream media subverts our democracy. But this is only if we let them.

I go to demonstrations assuming the mass media will either ignore or twist our message. But they can't undermine us. Mass demonstrations are still a success since they empower people who come from a host of isolated communities who need to know that they are not alone.

And these demonstrations also serve as crash courses in media literacy. A person who is part of something that is both peaceful and beautiful, who then watches as the media degrades or outright ignores it, learns more about the media than they ever could by taking a class or reading a few books. If you know you are part of a movement with a clear message, only to be told your message is silly or immature, you learn something about the media. If 30,000 people are orderly, and a monolithic media focuses entirely on the three nihilists trashing a Starbucks' window, you learn something about the media.

After that April weekend in D.C., many people will never again believe the corporate media--and that's one of the most powerful outcomes of a mass rally. Such folks now total well over a million people.

Michael I. Niman is a professor of social sciences at Medaille College in Buffalo, New York. This article is excerpted from the original published in the May 2, 2002, ArtVoice and can be found in its entirely on the Internet at mediastudy.com.