Tea Parties And Thugs
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, March 24, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Media Bias: The press need not support every protest it covers. But when it ignores a grass fire movement against government spending while its favored politician watches closely, then there's dereliction of duty.
Five more "tea parties" took place last weekend to protest runaway congressional spending. Showing up with hand-lettered signs were people not often seen at protests.
Inspired by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli's rant over excessive bailouts, these demonstrations started small but now draw thousands. The weekend protests were held in Orlando, Fla.; Raleigh, N.C.; Solomon's Island, Md.; Lexington, Ky., and Ridgefield, Conn. Another 150 tea parties are set for tax day April 15.
Bloggers and local press do cover these events, and to give credit due, so did Investor's Business Daily in a front-page story Feb. 28. But the national TV and print media are conspicuous by their absence. Some big news outlets see these events as atomized and unlikely to lead the nightly news. Others aren't interested because they're well outside media centers.
But the real reason the major media aren't interested in these protests is that they don't agree with them. In the final analysis, these affairs are really taking issue with the political party they helped elect without hiding bias in the last election.
That's why a small scrum of Acorn-financed wackos on a bus tour to intimidate AIG execs last weekend made the news while the tea parties didn't.
But unlike the staged, sparsely attended Acorn event, the tea parties are national, growing and indicative of a shift of public sentiment. If proof is needed, one need look no further than the attention the protests are getting from the Obama administration.
One of the biggest protests so far drew 15,000 on March 8 in Fullerton, Calif. But a Los Angeles Times blogger dismissed the event as "a radio stunt" because it was organized by local radio deejays. There was no explanation why the Times and other media were all over a 2006 immigration protest that was also called by deejays.
It wasn't far from Fullerton that President Obama chose to make a series of Southern California town hall visits in the wake of Santelli's criticism to sway the locals to reverse course and back his pro-spending agenda.
The media may have been dismissing the protests as insignificant, but Obama's political sharpies knew a challenge when they saw one.
The mainstream media only hurt themselves by ignoring news. If the Obama camp takes tea parties seriously, so should its toadies in the press.
ibdeditorials.com |
