By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, Two of Lebanon’s most powerful television stations played to their crowd. Future Television, loyal to Hariri and his Sunni constituency, devoted extensive coverage to the counterprotests in Tripoli. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar, calling the protests in Beirut “an unprecedented popular flood,” aired four scenes simultaneously of the crowds surging downtown. The broadcast was laced with the vocabulary of the summer war with Israel: victory, steadfastness and salvation.“People who survived 33 days of war in the south have no problem staying here for a year, or even two,” said Nada Mroueh, joining protesters flying flags that denoted their affiliation — yellow for Hezbollah, orange for Aoun, green for Amal. “Is it wrong to ask for our rights? Is Siniora more Lebanese than us? We are Lebanese, too.”

The demonstrators filled a swath of downtown and backed up into the main arteries leading into the city. Hezbollah has sought to cast the protest as representative of what it calls the national opposition, and the crowd unfurled a sea of the red, white and green Lebanese flag across downtown.

TV audiences