Media coverage, meanwhile, has failed to keep pace. News about the Catholic pacifists’ bold act of nonviolent civil disobedience at Kings Bay and their subsequent trial appears predominantly in progressive or religious publications like the National Catholic Reporter. Mainstream outlets, including those in Atlanta and nearby Jacksonville, Florida, have steered clear of the Plowshares activists.
The lack of coverage has prompted some Plowshares supporters to conclude the seven activists have become the victims of a media blackout.
Journalist Jeremy Scahill recently gave voice to that concern following the recent sentencing of Kelley and O’Neill. Speaking in October on Democracy Now!, Scahill slammed the press’ refusal to cover the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven.
“These Catholic peace activists, during the Trump administration, tried to confront that nuclear threat, and there was a total media blackout on the action that they did,” Scahill said. “And, you know, if we lived in a just society, the Kings Bay Plowshares activists’ trial would have been reported on as one of the most brave confrontations of the most dangerous aspect of this government, and particularly this administration.”
O’Neill pointed to a 2019 hearing for the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven attended by the actor and Catholic activist Martin Sheen. Only one reporter from a local newspaper showed up to document Sheen’s public show of support.
Rather than a concerted effort by the media to suppress the activists, O’Neill fears that the lack of press coverage is instead a reflection of how complacent Americans have become after 75 years of living on hair-trigger alert. In the absence of sustained grassroots mobilization aimed at keeping the issue of nuclear abolition in the spotlight, O’Neill imagines news editors and journalists view the Plowshares activists as if they are political outliers or relics of a bygone era, with little incentive to cover them.
“The media is not blacking us out,” said O’Neill. “They just made a conscious decision to say we’re not worthy of coverage. It just says something about how relaxed people are about being under the shadow of the nuclear arms race.”
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