Fox, MSNBC guilty of prejudging tea party protests, TV critic says
LA Times media critic James Rainey says both Fox News and MSNBC were guilty of prejudging Wednesday’s tax party protests.
Rainey writes:
“You’d expect conservative commentators like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to be hyping today’s wave of anti-tax “tea parties.” But Fox personalities labeled “news” anchors are right there with their blessings too — one telling us the protests will focus on “how much of our hard-earned money is going to the federal government,” another assuring us the tea parties themselves are sparking economic activity…”
“…That said, some liberal media voices seem just as intent on squelching the protesters before they’ve shoveled a single bag of Lipton into a single pond. At MSNBC, commentators Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews wrote off the demonstrations as the work of nothing more than crackpots or political stooges.”
“I’ve got a novel idea: How about if we wait and see what happens at these rallies? Maybe journalists can watch, report how many people are there, describe the kinds of things they say and tell us what they plan to do next.”
“I’m expecting you’ll see a fair amount of that approach, particularly from newspapers, which have mostly presented such old-school reporting in earlier stories on protests over Obama’s economic policies.”
That’s the approach St. Louis Post-Dispatch attempted, with Page One coverage of the Kiener Plaza tea party and additional reporting from our Washington and Springfield, Ill., bureaus. We hope our team of three reporters provided some depth and perspective of the events.
Several callers yesterday criticized the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a lack of pre-tea party coverage. The Post-Dispatch led the What’s Up listings on the STL Monday page with details about yesterday’s Kiener Plaza event.
Wednesday’s Opinion page almost noted the time and place of the Kiener Plaza protest, and published eight reader comments from The Platform blog.
(Tuesday’s Other Views page carried a tea parties commentary by Paul Krugman but made no mention of local events.)
Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
Kudos to the PD for putting the story on the front page. It’s a baby step..but a step nonetheless.
News outlets not only pre-judged the events, but CNN and MSNBC referred to those who participated as ‘teabaggers’ who were ‘teabagging’ - which is a term used to describe a sex act involving male genitalia, in particular the scrotum. Apparently, this term is used commonly in homosexual circles. Since I’m not gay, someone at work had to clue this 48-year-old man in on this…
It’s little wonder why so many people don’t trust the mainstream media anymore.
It’s also of little wonder why CNN and MSNBC are losing viewership as much as city newspapers are going bankrupt.
The blatant and heinous disrespect they have for their audience is amazing.
Like the courageous black protestors in the ’50’s who fought, and died, in the dewy days of the Civil Rights Movement, you get a sense of who IS on the right side of history!
Logic… A baby step to what? Please, expound.
The MSM (mainstream media for you non-combatants) is befuddled, confounded and confused. At first they tried the tired old that this was the bastion of ‘Neo-Nazis, anti-semites, white supremacists, white nationalists, anti-government anarachists…….” They threw everything out of their tired, worn, playbook at it and nothing stuck. They’re really left with their pants around their ankles (maybe they’re the teabaggers and it’s a freudian slip). The MSM just doesn’t know how to get the police state to find some way to give these groups a beatdown so the “macho body proud” cops can start popping off their tear gas canisters, batons and tazers on the crowd. The MSM was trying to rile things up. I never normally listen to the “The Tower of Right Wing Nazism 97.1″ but did tune in this morning to hear the shrill, right wing lunatic Allman talk about it (he’s his own biggest fan). And he openly admitting to going in an attempt to stir up trouble (I guess with the idea he could get the cops to draw blood on someone). The media is totally besides themselves. They really want some American citizens to get beat up or killed by the cops so they can say “the protestors turned violent and here the heroic Homeland Security (read: thugs) came in and saved the day! Don’t you feel patriotic now?”
Oh, come on, John C! It was legitimate commentary (and darned funny, to boot!).
I watched some of the FOX News pre-coverage of the run up to the teabaggings. It was all theatrics. “Join us at the T.E.A. Parties!” “Come see your favorite FOX News personalities at the T.E.A. Parties!” “Visit out virtual T.E.A. Party at foxnation.com!”
At least MSNBC had the good sense to lay their jokes out on the table. Besides, Maddow and Olbermann have a MUCH hipper audience than Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, and Van Sustern.
I’m not gay and I knew what teabagging meant. Please, do not make it sound more sinister than it is. It’s not an act or phrase that is used exclusively to “homosexual circles” (which, if I was a man was given to double entendre, could be quite amusing).
Oh, and one of the FOX local affiliate reporters called the local protest a “tea bag protest” so … What, do you suppose, did those people have against tea bags? Or teabags?
Here’s a tip: The next time people want to protest government spending, don’t use the term TEABAG. M’kay? Then — we that are hipper than thou — won’t have to giggle at little old (oblivious) ladies with tea bags dangling from her gardening hat. It’s all just too easy!
** Teabagging is a slang term for the act of a man placing his scrotum in the mouth or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person, often in a repeated in-and-out motion [deleted text]. The practice vaguely resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea.
Teabagging is also an erotic activity used within the context of BDSM and male dominance, with a dominant man teabagging his submissive partner, either a woman or a man, as one variation of facesitting and/or as a means of inflicting erotic humiliation.
One comment–Dick Cheney was quoted as saying that Fox “News” Channel is his favorite news outlet. End of story.