Media Then and Now: Rep. John Lewis Given Pass for House Floor Nazi Re
Since Obama's health care legislation has been signed into law, the media have been in overdrive about the backlash - whether it's been former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "reload" metaphor "targeting" certain congressional districts or how Republican lawmakers have supposedly encouraged violence by their floor rhetoric. Media personalities and Tea Party movement detractors have been agog - saying…
Prominent Republican Gets Actual Death Threat, NYT Suddenly Drops Conc
After devoting several stories to unsubstantiated allegations of racism and spitting by Tea Party protesters last weekend, the New York Times almost ignored an actual death threat made against a top Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, that resulted in the first actual arrest since the alleged wave of threats against politicians began.Norman Leboon of…
MRC-Radio: Bozell on WMAL's 'Grandy & Andy' Discussing 'Fairness Doctr
Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell appeared by phone on this morning's "Grandy & Andy Morning Show" program on Washington, D.C.'s WMAL (630 AM).The whole chat lasted about seven minutes, with topics ranging from the media's bias against the Tea Party movement to liberals' affinity for resurrecting the free speech-abriding "Fairness Doctrine."Here's the…
NYT Ponders: Weather Underground, Tea Party Movement Just 'Varying Deg
The Weather Underground and the Tea Party movement: Same thing?In the wake of Obama-care's passage, New York Times reporter Benedict Carey took the country's political temperature, and found it running a right-wing fever, in a front-page Sunday Week in Review essay. It's ominous title was cribbed from the famous scene in the movie "Network," "RAGE's DNA: Mad As Hell. And..." The online headline…
WaPo Finds 'Never More Than Three' Protesters at a Democrat's House in
Monday's Washington Post continues the "ugly" health-care protest theme by somehow making a national story out of a protest "which never included more than three people at a time" outside the home of freshman Rep. Steve Driehaus in west Cincinnati. That's on A-3. The Post said the poor Democrat found "angry protesters wouldn't allow him a full escape from the raw and vitriolic discussions that…
Surprise: Three Out of Four 'Chris Matthews Show' Panelists Say Tea Pa
Perhaps tuning in to NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" isn't high on your list of priorities, outside of wanting the chance to catch Dan Rather suggest something bizarre like President Barack Obama couldn't sell watermelons. However, if you had watched the March 28 broadcast of the program, you would have found the show's roster of panelists think the Tea Party movement is a black mark on the…
CNN Lowballs Nevada Tea Party Event: 'Hundreds of People, at Least Doz
If the media outlets are going to report on tea party events, they're not likely to get any benefit of the doubt much of the time. Case in point - at the Tea Party Express event on March 27 in Searchlight, Nev., which former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spoke, CNN's Fredricka Whitfield wasn't quite prepared to give the rally credit it was due as far as participation. She estimated that hundreds, but…
Mika Brzezinski's Revelation: Too Much Focus on 'One or Two' Crazies i
If you've tuned on the news, specifically MSNBC, you don't have to watch for very long to see the network views focusing on fringe elements of the right as a newsworthy endeavor. However, as MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski suggested, discretion should be exercised with the amount of attention given to these radical components of the opposition to President Barack Obama's health…
CNN's Sanchez Asks: Are U.S. 'Zealots' Similar to Al Qaeda, Taliban
Not content with simply reporting on threats against lawmakers who voted for ObamaCare, the liberal media has taken it upon itself (with a bit of direction from the Democratic Party) to blame the Tea Party and the GOP. The coverage stands in stark contrast to the litany of similar instances involving conservatives and Republicans. They were treated as isolated incidents, if discussed at all.CNN's…
Bozell: Media Display Disgusting and Cowardly Behavior in Covering Tea
The crescendo of bigotry by the left-wing media against the Tea Party movement reached a disgusting pinnacle yesterday with MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann indicting the entire movement as being homophobic racists based on the actions of a few fringe protestors.The media coverage from other networks - particularly ABC and CBS - the past few days has followed suit, attributing to the millions of…
NYT's Hulse Links Obama-Care Protests to Violent Racists of Civil Righ
Racists against Obama-care? New York Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse didn't take it quite that far, but he made a point to juxtapose protests against Obama-care to violent 1960s-era protests against black civil rights, as personalized in the main subject of Hulse's Monday piece, civil rights icon and Democratic Congressman John Lewis: "Mr. Lewis said he was not intimidated as he walked to…
Washington Post Cheapens 'Code Red' Anti-ObamaCare Rally with 'Hundred
Is The Washington Post playing favorites with causes that inspire people to exercise their First Amendment rights and take to the streets to protest? When it comes to opposition to Democratic efforts to reform health care versus opposition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it appears so. In a March 20 Washington Post story headlined "Obama delivers plea to 'help us fix this system,'" Ben Pershing…
CBS News's Mark Knoller: 'Tea Bagger Protests' Outside Capitol Hill
[Update, 10:21 am Eastern on Monday: Knoller responded on Sunday on Twitter to the criticism he was receiving online, stating that 'I wasn't aware there was any slur or pejorative associated with that term. The moment it was pointed out, I stopped using it." (H/t: Clay Waters of TimesWatch, Stephen Gutowski of NewsBusters).] CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller revived the use of a…
After Months of Ripping on Tea Parties, CNN Extols 'Coffee Parties
CNN.com has an article on its website extolling the virtues of the Coffee Party. The glowing language the piece uses to describe the movement stands in stark contrast to the cable network's treatment of Tea Party groups over the past year. CNN doesn't like the Tea Party movement, that much is clear. The cable network's on-air staff and guests have proclaimed it an "anti-government" group of "…