Media Cheers Obama, Ignores Tea Party Movement

Source: US News and World Reports via Google News

Big media, especially the TV networks, seem to be going out of their way to diss the conservative-leaning Tea Party movement as they work overtime to cheer on the Obama administration whose Gallup job approval rating has dropped to 43 percent, say conservative media critics who today are issuing a report that they say confirms suspicions that the mainstream media have got it wrong in their political coverage.


In their report provided to Whispers, the Media Research Center charges that the networks and much of the non-Fox cable have limited their coverage of the growing Tea Party Movement. And when they did cover the protests, the stories were laced with charges of racism and hate. Among the highlights:

Total coverage by the networks was miniscule. ABC, CBS, and NBC aired 61 stories or segments about the Tea Party over a 12-month period despite the movement's demonstrated political force.
By comparison, more liberal protests in the past won far wider and more positive coverage. For example, the Nation of Islam's "Million Man March" in 1995 was featured in 21 evening news stories on just the night of the march–more than the Tea Party received in all of 2009; and the anti-gun "Million Mom March" in 2000 was preceded by 41 broadcast network reports heralding its message with a dozen positive pre-march interviews with organizers and participants.
Some coverage suggested Tea Party racism and extremism.
The make-up of the Tea Party movement has been wrongly reported as a collection of angry white men when credible polling has shown that women are a big part of the protests and a quarter are Democrats with another 10 percent Independents.

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/washington-whispers/2010/04/13/media-cheers-obama-ignores-tea-party-movement.html

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What you have seen non-stop since last summer didn't happen

I wish.

The right does this all the time when they want coverage or a certain kind of coverage from the MSM. They accuse the media of not covering or not covering it right and the media cowers and starts covering it the way the right wing wants them too. If your a journalist decide what the correct approach is from a journalistic point of view and ignore these fools.

I get your point on working the refs but this mostly is an excuse to repeat this as if there was any merit to it

don't know why that memory just popped into my head

where "The other side deserves to be heard" when in fact the other side dominates the news (including counter arguments on MSNBC) and the reasonableness of their points are not considered. "The other side" are the main side and still play victim.

The original source for this ridiculous story is discussed here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8145452

I have not encountered a SINGLE actual self-proclaimed teabagger EVER! And I live in one of the most conservative areas of a midwestern state FFS. I'm pretty well convinced that this movement is almost entirely a media creation. If they weren't puffing it up constantly, it wouldn't even exist.

like the rest of our sad society you can hide in your den, have no human contact*, and fog your mind with the smoke maker of choice

*I am posting on an internet discussion board

As far as 3rd parties go, the Tea-Baggers have received more free publicity & media coverage than any in history. While Fox is the blatant sponsor, CNN has now sent reporters to tour with these people. And I love how the author cites a march in '95 and another in '00 as if they're current examples of "media bias." Perhaps this author could tell us how many 'evening news stories' or 'broadcast network reports' covered the anti-war protests that occurred across the nation from '03 to the present day. Just more BS to try to steer the media even further to the right.

Pay no attention to this misinformation. As far as I can see the media has gone out of their way to paint the Tea Party movement as real grass roots movement. So the article is false.

:eyes:

The movement is sputtering, and showing itself to be made up of fools and racists, so conservatives are falling back to the old attack the media maneuver. US Snooze again shows itself to be a conservative rag, a print version of Fox.

This fraud of a movement, assembled by Fox News, is a minority. They compare it to the coverage of the million man march, but I doubt the tea party protests have drawn a million people in all the marches and protests they've had-- put together.

It's funny US Snooze compares it to the Million Man March. I remember when the Teabaggers posted a picture of the MMM and claimed it was their own protest and the media was "ignoring" it. When it turned out their own protest had about 10,000 largely confused people.

The Teapartiers are just large enough to be relevant and too small (and stupid) to be influential. I wouldn't doubt it's going to turn out the worst thing conservatives ever did to themselves was put that movement together. Those idiots will discredit conservatism.

What else would they do?

Except for the hundreds of hours on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etal that have reporters following them from place-to-place on their route.

Maybe they're missing it because everywhere the tea party shows up, Palin is there to get the light on her.

One would, of course, naturally expect the president of the united states and the teabagger movement to get balanced and equal coverage.

:crazy:

What I'm concerned about is the huge overreporting of the tea partiers. I've been at DC protests with a hundred thousand people -- one of which had worldwide participation of well over a million -- and barely a peep in the media. Maybe, possibly a later-page newspaper story. Nothing on the networks.

These pathetic little crowds they have barely even qualify as a movement.

Not only have the Teapartiers have had nowhere near a million people at a march, I doubt that they've had half that at all of their marches and protests combined. Why would this article then even compare the Million Man March to a Tea Party protest. The MMM made the Tea Party look like . . . a tea party. What kind of comparison is that. Why not compare it to the one million immigrants who marched on Washington recently, who the MSM totally ignored. I guess that doesn't merit a mention, not only because it would point out that this actually happened, but also that it would blow the credibility out of this article.

US Snooze and World Retort has long been what you get if anyone at Faux News could actually write.

In the fucking Twilight Zone perhaps. :eyes:

This silly comparison with a 15-year-old actual grassroots march with a more recent Fox News/front group-manufactured march is just bleeping silly.

In fact, those "liberal" newspapers New York Times and Washington Post made Glenn Beck's "9/12" marches front-page news but didn't treat the protests in 2003 against the Iraq War front-page news.

I did some searching for network media coverage of anti-war protests:

On January 14, 2003, only ABC bothered to cover anti-war protests.

Same happened February 14. (That was when Peter Jennings, who had a reputation for having an anti-war bias, was the World News Tonight anchor)

In January 2007, the anti-war protests got a lot of attention with the networks. At CBS, Bob Schieffer asserted as fact an inflated attendance figure of 100,000.

But the Media Research Center's new complaint is just a desperate attempt to legitimize silliness.

thanks. I am keeping this for later perusal.

:toast: :toast: :toast: