THEY SAY – The Media Out on a Limb
From George Neumayr’s article in the March/April issue of California Political Review (www.cppf.org):
Reside in a tree, get gobs of positive media attention. This plan worked magnificently for John Quigley, an environmentalist prankster who commandeered an old oak tree near Santa Clarita from November to January. Quigley took the tree hostage as a form of protest against John Laing Homes. The company had been ordered to remove the tree by Los Angeles County as part of a road-widening project for a new housing development.
Major media outlets, always ready to cover a left-wing stunt, quickly dispatched reporters to Santa Clarita to cover the fate of “Old Glory,” a phony name environmentalists cooked up to win sympathy for a tree few Southern Californians had ever visited before the protest began. Quigley’s tree-sitting was an important statement about “suburban sprawl,” declared the New York Times.
Quigley is a professional protester and seasoned tree-sitter. (He previously resided in a Western Hemlock in Canada). California environmentalists needed a subcontractor and Quigley happened to be available. But would the average reader know this from the media coverage? Most of the coverage suggested he was a determined idealist. Quigley told sympathetic reporters his protest was a purely local one.
But Quigley, whom the media labeled an “environmental educator,” hails from posh Pacific Palisades, California. Had he even seen the tree before his friends alerted him about its removal? Stories about him have often mentioned his interest in John Muir and Henry David Thoreau. Why didn’t they also mention his environmentalist performance art? In 1998, he helped produce “Awakening” at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Buenos Aires. “Awakening” featured the vertical dance troupe Project Bandaloop rappelling down the National Law University Library building.
Reporters also didn’t mention his work for the Berkeley-based Ruckus Society, a group that trains people to stir up trouble at large events. “We’re taking protests to the very edge,” Quigley is quoted saying on its Web page. “We want people to wonder, “Why are those people risking their lives to do this?”
The Ruckus Society, according to a 1997 U.S. News and World Report story, hosts a training camp for tree huggers. Howard “Twilly” Cannon, one of the Ruckus Society’s founders, described the group’s mission: “You create symbols, then manipulate them so the public sees things the way we want them to.” Quigley must have chuckled at the ease with which he manipulated the “Old Glory” symbol through the media. He spent much of his time in the tree making cell phone calls to reporters. And if reporters showed up at the tree, Quigley’s entourage of hippie handlers would supply them with a walkie-talkie to speak to this simple man of nature.
Quigley’s good contacts with celebrities,he’s worked with them before at environmentalist events,also came in handy. Actress Rene Russo, looking terribly thoughtful, visited “Old Glory” with her daughter, and later Ed Begley Jr. showed up. The media covered their visits dutifully. Indeed, Begley wowed the media by scaling the tree. The press reported that he “overcame his fear of heights” to make a statement. “I’m not a climber,” he said. “I’m not good with heights, but it was very important, so I put that aside and just climbed on up.”
Reporters showed considerably less interest in the naked politics of the protest. Quigley and his leftist friends turned the area around the tree into a festival of left-wing politics. A flag of El Salvador,apparently the preservation of oak trees is suddenly a huge issue in the Salvadoran community,and peace signs dotted the site. Quigley’s bare-chested aides handed out a form letter to visitors, suggesting that people write Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and say, “You’re fighting Gandhi, man.”
Before the controversy ended (John Laing Homes is planning to relocate the tree), Quigley had become the subject of international coverage. In December, after he busted an upper molar on an energy bar, a dentist climbed up into the tree for a consultation. “Instead of a house call this is a tree call,” Dr. Ana Michel told CNN. News of Quigley’s energy-bar mishap even reached England. “Santa Clarita Tree Sitter Breaks Molar,” reported the United Kingdom’s Guardian.
