Millennium '73 - Media Coverage

Media Coverage

Between fifty and three hundred reporters covered the event. It received extensive coverage from the print media, though not the national television news coverage that organizers expected (there had been predictions that Walter Cronkite would cover it live). The New York Times and Rolling Stone both sent two reporters each, and it was also covered by the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Free Press, the Detroit Free Press, the Village Voice, The Rag of Houston, and the Houston Chronicle. Magazines covering the festival included Time, Newsweek, the New York Review of Books, Ramparts Magazine, Creem, Texas Monthly, The Realist, Crawdaddy, Playboy, Penthouse, and Oui. Journalists Marilyn Webb, Robert Scheer, Robert Greenfield, and Ken Kelley had been following or even living with the DLM for weeks or months prior to the festival.

KPFT-FM, a local progressive radio station, covered the event: Paul Krassner, John Sinclair, Jeff Nightbyrd, and Jerry Rubin were co-anchors. They reportedly mocked the festival and its attendees. Not realizing this, the festival organizers piped the signal throughout the Astrodome until the nature of the coverage became apparent. Loudon Wainwright III, who made a guest appearance on KPFT, later said that Maharaj Ji partly inspired his song "I am the Way".

Top Value Television (TVTV) chose the Millennium '73 festival as a topic for a documentary, titled Lord of the Universe. TVTV was a documentary production company that had just received acclaim for its groundbreaking piece on the 1972 Republican National Convention. They used Portapak cameras and newly developed recording technology that allowed them to shoot handheld video of broadcast quality. Two teams followed a member and the Soul Rush tour prior to the event. Led by producer Michael Shamberg, five camera teams recorded 80 hours of video at the festival itself. Chicago Seven codefendant Abbie Hoffman, who did not attend, provided commentary. Premie Sophia Collier wrote that the TVTV crew seemed to start filming whenever someone said anything fanatical or ill-conceived. PBS television stations across the US broadcast the documentary in the spring of 1974 and again in the summer. The documentary went on to win a DuPont-Columbia Award in 1974 for excellence in broadcast journalism.

Reporters were angered and alienated by their treatment. Rules and passes for media access were changed daily with no apparent logic. A female reporter wrote of being shoved a few times by WPC members. Another reporter said the DLM assigned him a guide to accompany him at all times to answer questions. Robert Scheer later wrote of being told by a press agent that the Venusians were landing and he could be the first to cover them if he hurried out to the parking lot. According to Collier, journalists found the event to be a confusing jumble of poorly expressed ideas. One reporter complained of the lack of content.

The national press was more concerned with finances and organization than with "feeling the Knowledge", by one account. Collier complained about the coverage in general and especially about an article by the Village Voice's Marilyn Webb that featured her, saying that the article was inaccurate and misrepresented her beliefs. Davis told reporters that he was aware of the perceptions of the event by outsiders, and admitted that the huge stage, flashing lights, and a kid giving parables about cars did not make for a good show.

In June 1974, the DLM's Divine Times newspaper printed an analysis of the press coverage. It criticized articles written about the festival, saying they portrayed Maharaj Ji as materialistic whose followers were misguided. The only article it approved of was in a children's magazine. The review also admitted that the DLM had made a number of mistakes and that the press relations were improper and inept. Carole Greenberg, head of DLM Information Services, said, "We took something subtle and sacred and tried to market it to the public." She said the press had done the movement a favor by holding up a mirror that showed "the garbage we gave them". The article went on to say that the greatest botch was Guru Maharaj Ji's press conference.