The "they don't even know what they want" coverage wasn't an incorrect analysis. It was a large part of the story both internally and externally. OWS struggled with this and the people that wanted to support them also struggled with it. It's not that the media needs clearly defined goals, society does too. To "understand" is a pretty basic need and while we all understood that the system is broken what we didn't know is how OWS aimed to change that. OWS seems a squandered opportunity in many ways. The coverage was pretty fair from what I saw, but then I read most all of my news on it from stuff posted on Hubski.
See, I thought it was pretty clear what they wanted. They wanted to express their collective outrage at income inequality, the perception that Wall Street played by a different (and unfair) set of rules than the rest of us, unemployment and destruction of wealth and opportunity directly caused by Wall Street. It was a group of people that were upset at a range of related issues, and I think what the media did was recast and define them as "a single voice" then ran with the narrative that this single voice offered no solution (when it wasn't necessarily even claiming to). I think it's ok and natural to just be pissed at abuses and a system that isn't working fairly. The media failed to describe what they were upset about on the balance, preferring to describe how they didn't know what they wanted. They clearly wanted more equity collectively, and since they were not one monolithic entity as they were cast, different protesters had different ideas on ow to enact it.
Yeah, I understand where you are coming from. But, you just described what they didn't want but you never told me what they did want or how they aimed to achieve it. This stuff is important when you have a "movement". Of course, it's just fine as an individual to air grievances you want to eradicate, but when you have a grievance it's sure a hell of a lot more helpful to also have a solution. I remain sympathetic to their grievances, still think it was a wasted effort. Edit: Wadted effort is way too harsh. I think it was a missed opportunity. Definitely not a wasted effort.