How does DU think the corpmedia would portray MLK if he were emerging as a leader in TODAY'S world?

[blm]

And do you believe that a Martin Luther King could EVEN emerge as a leader in today's world?

Looking forward to your thoughts on this.

[ellacott]

1. He would be demonized today

Called a troublemaker and a race baiter. He wasn't portrayed kindly until he died. It was only after his death that people acknowledged his worth. Even with that acknowledgement people have no knowledge of his work and what he stood for. Many people only know the end of the I Have a Dream Speech and nothing else.

[daninthemoon]

2. the media is today's assassin

[Captain Hilts]

3. He would probably be a very different person if he came to the fore today. nt

[lynnertic]

4. same way the portrayed him back then - a dangerous radical.

[blm]

5. He'd be a dangerous radical 24/7 as opposed to maybe a 1/2 hr a week?

.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Good point

Does any one remember the heat he took for calling America a "sick society"?

Does any one remember how diehard segregationists called him a communist with a straight face, like he couldn't be anything else?

[spanone]

6. think rev. wright

[Jack Rabbit]

10. Pastor Wright is no MLK

However, he has been the victim of a media lynching and isn't anything like the monster he has been drawn to be.

I'm sure they'd find a few statements of Dr. King's that can be taken out of context and looped all day, all week until Americans are convinced this man is a hatemonger. The racists at FoxNews would have fun passing unconfirmed factoids as proven facts and O'Reilly would be calling for his prosecution on some trumped up charge or another.

[JDPriestly]

7. The press would view him cynically. They would dismiss

his organizing efforts as self-serving and point out that he wasn't half what you might think. They would sound-bite his speeches to showcase the most radical or excited moments and get extreme right-wingers to analyze his acts, his speeches, his beliefs and his very person to find contradictions that they could repeatedly criticize on TV. And if that did not completely destroy our confidence in him, they would simply ignore him and cast him in the role of hopelessly angry gadfly. Isn't what they have done to our Democratic candidates this year?

The only answer to the MSM is for us to stop watching and listening to them. We are the audience they want to reach, we and our families and friends. We have only to ignore them and let their sponsors know that we are ignoring them. If enough of us do that (and I already have), these anti-American cynics will be out of jobs in a very short time.

[AngryOldDem]

8. Oh hell, no.

I doubt in today's climate even Christ Himself could emerge as a leader -- and the ones who would want to crucify him would bethose who claim to be his most devoted followers.

Anybody who makes people think -- who makes people perhaps consider looking down that road less traveled; who makes them question what the world (i.e., media, powers that be) in general is feeding them -- is immediately suspect. That is one of the main reasons why we are in such an ideological, political, and social wasteland. Anybody who dares to stray from the herd and challenge "popular" thought is a threat.

[blm]

11. That's pretty much how I see it.

.