According to conservative-media networks, Portland is a city engulfed in “riots” and “unrest,” where it’s “unclear how long this violence will last.” Their most important viewer, Donald Trump, describes Portland as “totally out of control” and progressively crumbling after “50 days of anarchy,” claims the president cited while justifying his decision to dispatch federal agents into the city who have detained protesters and packed them into unmarked civilian vans.
But this right-wing media—and thus, Trump co-opted—narrative of a disorderly Portland on fire ever since daily protests in the city broke out in response to Minneapolis police killing George Floyd is receiving significant pushback from local media outlets and area residents who are witnessing firsthand the city’s goings-on. The Oregonian noted in a weekend report that while tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters have taken to the streets throughout the past 54 days, the largest of those anti-racist demonstrations have remained peaceful. “National media reports, particularly those published by right-wing outlets,” noted the paper, “suggest a vastly different version of how safe it is for children and families to stroll through downtown Portland.”
The smaller part of the protests that networks like Fox News and One America News have latched onto involves a 12-block area around the Multnomah County Justice Center and a federal courthouse, The Oregonian notes, where a reported couple hundred mostly young protesters gather to stage a nightly showing against police. Much of the “violence” cited by Homeland Security in a press release last week explaining the department’s presence in Portland occurred during these standoffs, with graffiti being the main offense during the early days of the protests. To keep protesters away from the Justice Center, a chain-link fence was erected to divide a park where groups form at night and the building’s property. At times, in response to protesters casting small items over the barricade like plastic water bottles, open cans of alcoholic seltzer, and even donuts, police on the other side have unleashed tear gas and “less lethal” projectiles into the crowd.
At their most dangerous, on at least one occasion, the protests around the Justice Center have seen police reportedly firing off nearly every kind of crowd control munition at their disposal while protesters countered with fireworks. In an interview with the New York Times, Robert Evans, a journalist based in Portland who has been covering the protests, recounted such a situation that happened on July 4. “It started as drunken party, more or less. At random, cops began shooting into the crowd. Protesters coalesced around the idea of firing commercial-grade fireworks into the Justice Center and Federal Courthouse,” he told the Times. “You had law enforcement firing rubber bullets, foam bullets, pepper balls and tear gas as crowds circled in around the courthouse firing rockets into the side of the building. That went on for a shocking length of time—there was this running three-hour street battle.”
Overall, however, these skirmishes have remained relatively small and isolated when compared to the nationwide unrest that broke out in the days that immediately followed Floyd’s death. But footage of those few blocks in downtown Portland has become a go-to segment at Fox News, which, in mid June, resorted to replaying the same May footage of the Minneapolis police precinct burning when its hosts apparently ran out of new material to portray American cities as perpetually on fire.
“Unrest across America all weekend: riots in Portland, violent protests in Seattle,” said Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Monday morning. “Portland’s mayor demanding federal troops leave, despite the violence. This as calls to defund the police continue while crime rises in major cities across the country.” Later in the day on the network, Katie Pavlich, a Fox News contributor, pointed to the federal courthouse in Portland while insisting that the roving squads of federal agents are necessary for its protection against “the anarchists [surrounding] the building.” During the same segment, Fox News’s Carley Shimkus lauded the unidentifiable Homeland Security officers for “trying to keep the community safe” and said that Portland mayor Ted Wheeler’s opposition to their presence “makes the situation totally dangerous and entirely out of control.” The same hyperbolic imagery has been cited on the network’s non-opinion side, as a Fox News headline on Friday read, “Portland protesters flood police precinct, chant about burning it down,” and corespondent Christina Coleman said on Sunday that “it is unclear how long all of this violence will last.”
Alternatively, a reporter from The Oregonian called on people living in Portland to describe what they’re actually seeing on a day-to-day basis. One person replied by saying there “ain’t nothing ‘under siege,’” as they are witnessing “dogs playing and people picnicking” and that they attended “a farmer’s market in the park.” Other locals shared images including a neighborhood gardening project and elephants at the Oregon Zoo enjoying a bath on a summer day.
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