A great Newsweek web item today about how the tea party coverage is missing some crucial investigation of the members and the organization.

“The media's enduring, and understandable, fascination with the Tea Party movement continues unabated, as this weekend's coverage demonstrates,” writes Ben Adler of Newseek's The Gaggle blog. “Unfortunately, what appear to be false notions of objectivity--or perhaps a lack of interest in policy--is preventing that coverage from illuminating what the movement actually represents and what it would do if empowered.

”Case in point: the Associated Press just published a 2,300-word stemwinder examining how and why a variety of individuals became involved in the Tea Party movement without once asking what precisely the platform consists of. It tells you the back stories of representative Tea Partiers, dutifully quotes their antipathy toward government, taxes, and deficit spending, and their horror at the accusation that they are motivated by racial animus. But the reporter seems never to have posed any serious questions about what tradeoffs they would make to achieve their stated goals."

Well put!