I think you're missing the point of the "white man" comment. I was merely pointing out that the ingredients for building a myth of this sort are already there, so there's no need to bring in Gene Sharp for this purpose. I wasn't actually claiming that they were already doing this already (as I think my reference to Obama's speech should have made clear).

As to your quote, my point was that the demonstrations were partly a culmination of a series of labour protests over the past few years. All your quote shows is that there were many reasons for people joining the current protests, which isn't that surprising. You've convinced me elsewhere that the NYT eventually covered this aspect, but not that they did so early on during the protests (or before, though I did find one NYT article of one major strike from 2008; maybe you can do better).

Thi s isn't really a problem that is in any way specific to the NYT, but reflects a natural tendency of all media groups to focus on the new media aspect of a story, since that is what they are familiar with, and that is the easiest way for them to get information. We're only focusing here on the NYT because they seem to have been the source of the Gene Sharp story.