500 picket CBS in New York (11/20/94)

500 picket CBS in New York

by Khristina Lew

NEW YORK - Over 500 Ukrainian Americans aggravated Manhattan's rush hour traffic on November 14, picketing both CBS's production headquarters on West 57th Street and its corporate headquarters 10 blocks away in reaction to the network's apparent refusal to retract the inflammatory October 23 "60 Minutes" segment on alleged anti-Semitism in western Ukraine.

Carrying banners and placards that read "CBS is racist" and "60 Minutes - Ugly Face of Journalism" while chanting "Morley Safer's got to go," the Ukrainian demonstrators blocked the entrance to CBS's production headquarters from 3 to 4:30 p.m. As CBS employees alighted from the building at the end of the workday, the demonstrators booed them, forcing them to weave through a human barricade to the street.

At the height of the Ukrainian picketing, 25 New York City police officers attempted to direct the rush-hour traffic that demonstrators blocked while handing out flyers. Both CBS Radio and a CBS television crew interviewed demonstrators.

Organized by the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center in Philadelphia, the United Ukrainian American Organizations of New York and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America New Jersey State Council, the demonstration brought together young and old, professionals and the clergy from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Having sung the Ukrainian national anthem and read a list of their demands, which included a retraction of "The Ugly Face of Freedom" segment, the demonstrators lined up for the 10-block procession to CBS corporate headquarters on 52nd Street and the Avenue of the Americas. Escorted by a police van, three police cars and 12 police mopeds, the Ukrainian demonstration, stretching the length of a city avenue block, stopped traffic.

At CBS's other headquarters, the demonstrators overran the sidewalk opposite the building, waving their banners and Ukrainian flags at the CBS employees peering out of the building's windows. Curious passers-by questioned the demonstrators, shaking their heads when told that "60 Minutes" correspondent Morley Safer had made claims that Ukrainians were "genetically anti-Semitic."

That evening's CBS news carried a brief report on the demonstration, qualifying it with the terse statement that CBS stands by its story.

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