Will Media Give Monday’s Nationwide Union Rallies As Much Coverage As Tiny Tea Party Event?
April 04, 2011 10:34 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Given the fact that the Beltway press last week showered news coverage on a Washington, D.C. Tea party rally that attracted “dozens” of supporters, the same laundry list of news organizations will devote just as much time and energy covering Monday’s much larger pro-labor rallies, right?
Labor groups, in collaboration with MoveOn.org, are sponsoring pro-union rallies across the country today. These events commemorate the 43rd anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in Memphis, where the civil rights leader was rallying union workers, but they are also an attempt to further fuel the pro-union movement begun in Wisconsin.
Dubbed “We Are One,” the events are expected to draw thousands of supporters to hundreds of rallies.
But if tradition holds, these rallies will receive a fraction of the media coverage that the mainstream press routinely doles out for the Tea Party (whose events are notoriously under-attended) as well as other right-wing groups.
I’m convinced that if the Tea Party had brought a state capital to a month-long standstill the way union supporters did in Wisconsin, CNN, for instance, would have built an on-site studio and provided constant, around-the-clock coverage of the political drama. By comparison, CNN’s Wisconsin coverage was often perfunctory and the cable news channel too often ignored the grassroots nature of that political uprising.
Here’s a perfect example of the media double standard regarding political protests. Last month, union forces organized a rally in St. Louis drawing 4,500 people who spoke out against the anti-union initiatives being launched by various Republican governors. But as blogger Andrew Shriver noted, the local newspaper, The St. Post Dispatch, completely ignored the event even though same daily has routinely covered nearby Tea Party events that drew a fraction of the pro-union rally's turnout.
Last week, the press may have hit a new low with its out-sized coverage of the Tea Party’s D.C, rally and its “dozens” of attendees. Monday’s union rallies across the country provide the media with a chance to show that it treats grassroots movements on the left just as seriously as those on the right.
Short answer: NO."
Exactly. faux is rabidly anti-union and they are rabidly pro-teatrad and pro-repubtard. They are:
Unfair and Unbalanced, Unfair and Unbalanced, Unfair and Unbalanced, Unfair and Unbalanced, Unfair and Unbalanced, Unfair and Unbalanced, Unfair and Unbalanced, Unfair and Unbalanced, Unfair and Unbalanced
As for FOX, nobody here will say they're a legitimate Media Outlet, so if they don't cover it, who should care.
"here's your sign"
In both cases the Mainstream Media as well as the Right Wing media jumped into action. With Massive and Non-Stop Coverage of Sarah Palin her average poll numbers that (according to the polls at Pollingreport.com) averaged in the 30s rose to an average in the 40s before declining once again. Despite their best efforts Sarah Palin could not be sold in convincing numbers to the public by the press. The end result has been that it is too close to the 2012 election and they have turned their focus to promoting other Republican candidates.
Likewise, the Tea party polled very low nationwide despite the media covering up it's corporate ties. CNN's American Morning for example had a five day, five part special back then on the Tea Party and it's supposed "grass roots". The result has been that there have been "legitimate" Tea Party groups that have formed none of which have as much influence as the corporate tied Tea Party groups because of the money. Yet the media still over inflates their influence, their numbers, while still perpetuating the lie that the movement is grass roots. This has worked to have Americans parroting the myths in conversation despite the consistently low poll numbers. Far be it for Americans to actually look up any of the polls the media spins.
In the same way the media intentionally over emphasized the importance of Race in the 2008 election to help try to get John McCain elected they will do the same in 2012 to divide the country by race. They will also over emphasize the importance of the Tea Party for the same reason.
Anything that helps Republicans.
John
I was writing about this a year ago, and revisited it a few months later, but nothing seems to have improved. One of the central goals of astroturf is to give the false impression of a large "grassroots movement." That's why the teabaggers follow every Tea Party event with insanely inflated claims about event attendance. That's also why the polling and its presentation in the press is such a travesty--it plays along with this. And, of course, journalists and pundits are now using "Tea Party" as a catch-all label for disenchanted far-right Republicans (and rebranding "Republicans," after it became remarkably unpopular, was part of why the teabaggers were invented).
Late last year, the Washington Post made an effort to canvass every teabagger group in the U.S. Over half of them had fewer than 50 members; over half of them were affiliated with one of the big astroturf orgs (though the Post concealed the extent of this); the median amount of money the groups had on hand was $500. Only 39 groups--6%--claimed to have over 1,000 members, and even at that, one suspects most of those "members" exist only in the imagination of those answering the questions.
This marginal and irrelevant phantom is what is now largely driving political debate in the U.S. It's why the only "discussion," now, is over draconian cuts in spending vs. really draconian cuts in spending, rather than over the wisdom of cutting spending at all in the midst of such a weak economy (when literally every legitimate economist knows spending cuts will hinder recovery and make bad matters worse).
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Left Hook!
http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
Thanks Eric!
Again, I always wish MMFA would get back to covering what the Mainstream Media has and is doing to influence Independents into voting Republican like they used to. This piece gives me wonderful flashbacks.
Thanks again,
John
Probably not because they are devoting prime front page website space, front page newspaper space and headline air time to todays re-election announcement by President Obama and all the ReThug and Tea Party responses and commentary to that announcement. Today. One wonders WTF the Whitehouse and the DNC are thinking with their head so far up their @ss inside that bubble. Today. of all days. Sheesh.
Yeah, I am just a tad angry at the utter DUH!! factor on this move.
For the love of all that is good and sane, Whitehouse & DNC, Wake the hell up already, will ya?
We put alot of time, effort and energy into the planning and execution of the rallies here in Ohio. Nonetheless, I am sure that the Whitehouse & DNC have a much broader and more informed view of what is going on politically throughout the entire nation than little ole me does here in Ohio and that they had sound, legitimate reasons for announcing on the same day that these very important rallies were to take place.
Attendence here in Ohio was great and all the various types of local media covered it generously and supportively.