Occupying More Space
October 20th, 2011
As Occupy Wall Street spreads in its wondrous way (Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Pittsburgh, Nevada City, California), journalists are reaching the conclusion that the story to report on is the lack of a central storyline. As protesters gathered in Amsterdam, journalists circled, hunted for a leader (or a lede), found none, and eventually concluded that that was okay–which is remarkable in itself, as if the nature of what qualifies as hard news is in the process of evolving. As Dutch journalist Bas Heijne said in the daily NRC, “Here is where you have to be, even if you don’t know exactly where you are.” Exactly.