Tea Party Media Coverage: Is Objective Journalism Dead?

The recent "Tea Parties" held nationwide on April 15 exposed an ugly side of today's mainstream media. It's widely accepted by most Americans that the media is biased and will only cover what it wants to the way it wants to, but the Tea Parties brought out such an astonishing display of unabashed antagonism and hostility that one wonders if the idea of objective journalism is indeed dead.

The Tea Parties began as a grassroots movement to protest out-of-control government spending, federal bailouts, and stimulus packages that will nearly triple our current government debt. They feel, like the original colonists felt, overtaxed and under-represented. Estimates tally the number of people who rallied nationwide at a quarter of a million. The movement was championed by many conservative and libertarian bloggers, pundits, and radio talk show hosts, and was largely covered, and in many ways promoted, by the Fox News Channel.

Therein lay the quandary for many media outlets. First, many would be less than enthusiastic about providing positive coverage to anything conservative or "right-wing," and second, they didn't want to appear to support (or worse, play second fiddle to) something that Fox News seemed to have co-opted and taken the lead on.

Instead, the major media outlets decided not to simply cover the events, but deride and marginalize them as a small gathering of angry right-wingers who have yet to accept the fact that Barack Obama won the election. MSNBC and the rest of the NBC news division, who prides itself on its liberal bent, had a number of anchors and pundits line up to criticize, including actress Janeane Garofalo, who called Tea Party participants "racist rednecks" who hate Obama because he is black. For good measure, during coverage of the event, MSNBC posted phrases like "Capitalist Tools" and "Tea-Brained" on the screen.

During a CNN live shot at a tea party in Chicago, reporter Susan Roesgen was so openly aggressive against a protester (who was carrying a child no less) that many felt she was trying to stage a confrontation. After a question asking why he was there, Roesgen openly argued with him, quoting facts about government spending that seemed to be right out of the Obama press office. After a short argument, Roesgen threw it back to the CNN anchor in studio, stating "I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox." The CNN anchor then stated that the report was indicative of what was going on around the country. They failed to mention that the protests were non-violent, with no reports of any arrests at any event nationwide.

By comparison, have you ever seen a CNN reporter (or any reporter for that matter) aggressively question the logic or motives of an Iraq War protester, an anti-capitalism protester at a G8 meeting, or any activist with a liberal bent? It won't happen. In an interesting side note, video of the exchange between Roesgen and the protester has been removed from YouTube at CNN's request, and Roesgen has not commented on the incident, as CNN announced she went "on vacation" after the Tea Party. It was later revealed that Roesgen has applied to work for "right-wing network" Fox twice and not hired. Not that she's bitter or anything.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper laughed off the Tea Parties during his coverage, using the term "tea-bagging" as slang for a sex act. Instead of addressing the issues being discussed, he giggled like a junior high kid using his first dirty word.

Even Democrat and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi couldn't hide her antagonism. She was arrogant and dismissive, saying the protesters were upset rich people.and calling the movement more "astroturf" than "grassroots."

At the core of the controversy over Tea Party coverage is the notion of objective journalism. Some might argue that true journalism cannot be objective, and must take a position on an issue. That may be true, but "objective journalism" as we understand it today involves the presentation of both sides of an issue, without allowing one's personal prejudices to distort that presentation. It's something people have come to expect.

When mainstream media outlets characterize everyday Americans of all persuasions as lunatic fringe and bait them into confrontations for ratings or to portray them as angry and irrational, it is a true sign that they are abusing the trust the public has placed in them. Worse yet, these members of the media believe the average citizen is either too lazy or too stupid to realize the truth. These power-drunk media elitists are supported by institutional prejudices against Republicans, conservatives, or anything remotely right of center.

Ironically, the whole idea of the Tea Parties is to protest the actions of government as out of control and out of touch with mainstream America. The same can now be said about the media.

Source: FoundingBloggers.com