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Turned on MSNBC this morning and watched Alex Witt anchor a story about the protests at the homes of AIG executives (which turned out to be a pathetic farce, with more media than protesters).What struck me was that Witt never mentioned who organized the protests. In fact, the organizers were The Connecticut Working Families Party, an ACORN front group. An uniformed MSNBC viewer would not have learned that from Alex Witt, who said nothing -- zero, zilch, nada -- about who organized the protests.
How many other news organizations reported the anti-AIG protests without reporting who the organizers were? And how many people understand the propaganda purpose of this omission? To explain briefly: The point of the protests is to make AIG execs the scapegoats for the idiocies of the bailout bill that ACORN's Democratic allies supported. Blaming the AIG execs takes the heat off the politicians. But in order to convey that propaganda message effectively, media must pretend that there is no political ulterior motive to the protest, and thus no politically-connected organizing force behind it. To have mentioned CWFP or ACORN -- and especially to have identifed those as left-wing groups allied with Democrats -- would have destroyed the propaganda value of the story.
Meanhile, as scads of media turned out to cover one busload of anti-AIG protesters in Connecticut, some 300 turned out for a Tea Party demonstration in Ridgefield, Conn., that the major media ignored, just as they are trying to ignore the Tea Party movement nationwide. Try this: Switch off Fox News sometime and turn on NBC, ABC, CBS or CNN to see how much coverage they're devoting to the Tea Party protests. The answer is, almost zero. It's almost as if there were a list or something . . . UPDATE: Gahrie's Grumbles also notes the glaring disparity of coverage between the AIG protests and the Tea Party movement. (Full disclosure: Gahrie is a first-time Rule 5 Sunday participant, which is a different kind of list.)
I wrote about this this morning also...disgraceful if not unexpected.
ReplyDeleteI've also come up with some suggestions to expand the Tea Party protests. Briefly, change your withholding to "0", stop letting the government use your money interest free, and don't file your tax returns next year until April 14 or April 15.
Do we have an number regarding the protesters to media ratio?
ReplyDeleteAnyone hear anything else about those "canvassing" meetings that were supposed to occur everywhere this weekend? "Organizing America", you know, that (cough)grassroots(cough) DNC organization? I went to one yesterday and no one showed up.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think FoxNews reported that it was Acorn who did the protests either. At least not specifically named on the segment I just watched. A search for 'ACORN' on foxnews.com doesn't bring up any mention of the protests either.
ReplyDeleteThe journo list..
ReplyDeleteGlorified PR agents for the Obama White House.
" Gahrie's Grumbles also notes the glaring disparity of coverage between the AIG protests and the Tea Party movement. "
ReplyDeleteWell, you guys spend your time lambasting and excoriating the MSM and then act surprised--shocked!- that they do what you accuse them of doing.
Or could it be that since the AIG flap is the story of the week and therefore anything related becomes, for the MSM, news worthy?
And perhaps this so called "Tea Party" business is just another example of bad marketing. RS has blogged about this before. To an outsider the "Tea Party" thing sounds like a Civil War reenactment. Alot of self-congratulatory make-believe patriotic bullshit. Hardly the stuff for exciting news....
But hey! Why grumble when you've got Fox to do all the fair and balanced reporting for you?
PS- this "Tea Party" business is hardly a "movement" as it is a carefully orchestrated Right Wing media schtick.
Young Four Eyes:
ReplyDeleteSo 40 people getting on a bus and harassing AIG executives at their homes is "newsworthy", but thousands of Americans around the country getting together to express their displeasure with the government for the past month is not.
You think maybe the coverage would be different if these protestors were members of Code Pink or ACORN the coverage would be different?
Gahrie-
ReplyDeleteI never said the AIG protests were more news worthy than the "Tea Party" protests. So much of what the media considers news worthy is questionable. All I said was that considering the news cycle at the moment, with AIG being the big lead, it's no surprise that those protests were covered.
The bigger issue, which you avoided because it is so much easier to play the victim of some vast conspiracy( Cons are so adept at imaginary persecutions) is that the " Tea Party" hokum is lousy PR/marketing.
Add to the fact that you guys expect the MSM to do you a favor when your side spends most of it's waking life discrediting the media...my friend, you doth protest too much.
In short, suck it.