New York Times on G20 riot violence: meh
While this weekend’s orgy of vandalism may have been earth shaking for Torontonians, the event left the New York Times decidedly nonplussed. After not mentioning the riots for most of Sunday, the old grey lady churned out a piece in today’s print edition. In it, editors seem to find the staggering number of arrests (over 900) noteworthy, but that’s about all.
The violence was not exceptional compared with problems at previous international meetings, like the World Trade Organization’s gathering in Seattle in 1999. Toronto’s shopping district sustained the greatest damage but quickly became something of a tourist attraction… But it was nevertheless extraordinary for Toronto, a city with little history of violent protests.
Look, we love getting a little attention from the Times, but was it really necessary to simultaneously disregard our fears, imply how boring we are and criticize our civil liberties trampling? At least when we have a riot, it’s typically not Drake related.
• Police draw criticism for treatment of G20 protestors [New York Times]
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/new-york-times-on-g20-riot-violence-meh/&title=New York Times on G20 riot violence: meh&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/New-York-Times.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_30759" align="alignleft" width="320" caption="The old grey lady shrugs her shoulders (Image: Jason Kuffer)"][/caption]
While this weekend’s orgy of vandalism may have been earth shaking for Torontonians, the event left the New York Times decidedly nonplussed. After not mentioning the riots for most of Sunday, the old grey lady churned out a piece in today’s print edition. In it, editors seem to find the staggering number of arrests (over 900) noteworthy, but that’s about all.
The violence was not exceptional compared with problems at previous international meetings, like the World Trade Organization’s gathering in Seattle in 1999. Toronto’s shopping district sustained the greatest damage but quickly became something of a tourist attraction… But it was nevertheless extraordinary for Toronto, a city with little history of violent protests.
Look, we love getting a little attention from the Times, but was it really necessary to simultaneously disregard our fears, imply how boring we are and criticize our civil liberties trampling? At least when we have a riot, it’s typically not Drake related.
• Police draw criticism for treatment of G20 protestors [New York Times]){kind=link}
How insensitive, to dismiss what happened in Toronto this past weekend as being “unexceptional”! I suppose a 747 jet plane has to crash into the TSX building and send people jumping out the windows onto Bay Street before these New Yorker editors deem it newsworthy? Stupid, arrogant jerks!
I disagree somewhat with your take of the NYT piece, as it gave a pretty thorough account of the police response and the reactions to it. Also, the writer said something within the piece that I haven’t seen one major Canadian newspaper pick up on yet – note the verb “allowing” in the first sentence: “After allowing a small group of people to burn police cars and smash windows unimpeded on Saturday afternoon, many of the 20,000 police officers deployed in Toronto changed tactics that evening and during the last day of the gathering.”