Tea & Sympathy: NPR Newsbaggers

The post below shows the disproportionate and favorable coverage that a puny rally of 100-200 Tea Party rightwingers generates on NPR. So what happened when, this past March, hundreds of anti-war protesters showed up at the White House and over 100 were arrested - including Daniel Ellsberg? On NPR, the public news outlet for the Ministry of Truth, it never happened. And what about when 27 anti-SOA protesters are arrested after a march of 100-200. Want to guess where that one goes on NPR? Memory hole again. All right, so maybe hundreds just doesn't show up on the radar when you're busy bootlicking the far right; how about thousands marching against war? Are you ready? Yep, NPR goes 0 for 3 when it comes to antiwar activism, even when it includes very large numbers, committed civil disobedience and large arrests.

FAIR has just done a great job pointing this out and suggests that you sign their petition. I have to add that NPR takes the general media's blackout of antiwar activism to a truly perverse level - not only do they newsbag the important stories of antiwar activism - they have the gall to take their own erased-news as evidence of a dead antiwar movement and pass it off as journalism.

All Tea All the Time

(That's hapless Tea Reporter Don Gonyea)

It's no secret that like Fox News, NPR is Tea Party friendly turf - even fairly unbalanced Tea Partiers like Lori Medina of Dallas find NPR fair - well, duh. Given that a recent poll shows the Tea Party suck factor growing (almost as high as for Democrats and Republicans-see the poll here), and given that a recent Tea Party rally in Washington, DC drew a minuscule 100-200 participants (Politico and Slate have a couple of photos - you decide) - no wonder NPR felt obliged to provide amplified and robust coverage to this far right army of Dick. So what does a dinky little DC rally of hardcore rightwingers get on NPR?

• A Thursday ATC story featuring highlights of your speakers and a description of the Sen. Rand "Civil Rights" Paul and the unhinged Michele Bachmann as bringing "some star power."
• More Thursday amplification of Tea Party talking points from NPR's Frank James on the "It's All Politics" blog.
• An April Fool's Morning Edition feature with Tea Party fool, Audie Cornish, who explains that "It wasn't a big group less than 250 people. But they had a big voice."
• A Weekend Edition Sunday feature where some of those several hundred attendees get to weigh in on US foreign policy in Libya - "...when it boils down to it, we are the country that's done the great things in the world; we are the leaders, and that's a role we still have to have."

So what gives? Even if one concedes that the Tea Party represents a force in American politics, one can easily argue that a group like MoveOn represents an equally powerful force in electoral politics. So take a look at how on-air Tea Party coverage compares to on-air MoveOn coverage on NPR. That's 789 for the Tea Party compared to 106 for MoveOn - very fair, very balanced.

If it Talks Like a Fox

(disclaimer - graphic is slightly altered from the actual screenshot from NPR)

His name is Larry Abramson and he counts like a FOX:

On Saturday's ATC,. Referring to the thousands of anti-union protesters who came to Madison - and were massively outnumbered by pro-union activists - Abramson said, "But today, as you mention, there were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Tea Party supporters and other supporters of the governor's plan,..." Talk about just making crap up.

and he talks like a FOX:

On Sunday's Weekend Edition he crowed that "supporters of Governor Walker...brought in some Tea Party firepower." He said, "One local remarked he'd never seen so many conservatives gathered at one time in notoriously progressive Madison." And according to Abramson, the Capitol building in Madison isn't an important symbol or platform for getting labor's message across any longer; it "has turned into what amounts to a giant performance space."

Well dang, if it counts like a FOX, talks like a FOX, and scoffs like a FOX - it must be...an NPR reporter!

It's Time for 'The Interesting Comparison' Game

This morning Audie Cornish got to reflecting on the Tea Party movement and the Civil Rights Movement. She said,

"This week, Sarah Palin compared the Tea Party movement to the civil rights movement, saying that the same patriotic indignation drove both efforts, as well as the American Revolution. It's an interesting comparison. After all, the civil rights movement led to two landmark pieces of federal legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

Poor Audie Cornish; it's no wonder she's a bit confused. After all, she works at a Tea Party friendly news organization, which in the past week has run piece after piece bestowing the mantle of legitimacy on the Republicorporatist Tea Party movement. Tuesday morning featured a glowing account of Tea Party "star" Keli Carender whose blog profile states, "I will not allow corrupt socialists and communists to infect this country without a hard, hard fight." On Friday afternoon Don Gonyea was at the Tea Party convention in Nashville chatting up some real winners like Susan Curran who "sees President Obama as a threat to the Constitution and a threat to the America she loves." He also played a clip of Tom Tancredo's convention speech : "People who could not even spell the word vote or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House." Fortunately, by Saturday morning Gonyea was back to explain what socialism actually is and demonstrate that only a liar, fool, or ignoramus would accuse Wall Street friendly Obama of being a socialist (JUST KIDDING!). What Gonyea actually did was let Judson Phillips, the convention organizer, comment on Tancredo's speech by saying, "The word socialist ....has a very specific political meaning. It refers to a specific political ideology. And I think it's very clear that that is the political ideology of Barack Obama."

With all the tea vapors and talk of socialism swirling around the newsrooms at NPR, it's no wonder that Audie Cornish just got a little mixed up. So I figured I'd have one of my cartoon friends on to help Audie to play Who's the Civil Rights Hero?

Let's Have a Tea Party

In case you missed it last Wednesday's ATC gave a whopping 12.5 minutes of airtime promoting the sophisticated political maturation of the Tea Party movement - especially in Texas. Bob Siegel was hosting...
(cursor over each frame and click the hyperlinked ones you want to follow - nos. 1,2,3, 10, 13, & 14)

Tea Party Radio

Fox News makes no bones about endorsing the extreme-right, proud-to-be-stupid Tea Party Express, but NPR is a bit more subtle in its pro-Tea Bagger coverage. Over the last three days it has provided this reactionary tour frequent, uncritical broadcasting time:

On Sunday's Weekend Edition Liane Hansen introduces NPR's Jay Brady who is traveling with this road show. In a completely uncritical report Brady makes these statements:

• "Well, I've been to four rallies now, in two days, and talked with quite a few people. Most of them, I'd say they're over 40 years old, and in general, they appear to be folks who work pretty hard for a living." (unlike the dirty hippie crowd who show up at antiwar functions).
• "And they talk about all kinds of issues....But I think the one thing that just about everyone had in common is that they feel like they're not being heard." (No mention of the really thoughtful signs about "dictator" Obama, and his birth certificate.)
• [describing the "mood" at the rallies] "You know, they feel a lot like a small county fair. People are serious about what's being discussed at the rallies, but it seems like they're also there to have fun." (I can imagine time traveling Brady using the same description reporting on early 20th century lynchings.)

In case you didn't get enough of this poison tea, Jeff Brady is back on Monday morning, giving more love to these hard working, honest volk who no one listens to:

• "A political action committee from California is sponsoring the bus tour...the Our Country Deserves Better PAC. The goal is to bring together different groups concerned about what he calls heavy handed government policies."
• "At the tea party rally, there were few, if any, fans of Mr. Obama and plenty of critics."
• "...There were also people holding signs criticizing government involvement in health care and excessive federal spending. The scene a few hours away in Ely was similar. This is a place where people are comfortable using language most others left behind with the end of the Cold War." [followed by a woman claiming "We don't need a communist nation. And that's what Obama's taking us to."]
• "Tea Party Express Chief Strategist Sal Russo says people, who come to these rallies aren't super focused on specific issues. He says they are motivated by broad ideals."
• "A lot of people attending these rallies say they feel left out, as if no one in Washington is listening to them anymore."

Of course Brady and the Morning Edition hosts offer no check to the utter insanity of claims of socialism or communism - on the contrary NPR lends respectability and legitimacy to the extremist ideology of the Tea Bagger movement through Brady's repetition of the claim to "broad ideals" and his earlier remarks about participants being "serious about what's being discussed."

Still not sold on the salt-of-the-earth charm and idealism of these Tea Party know-nothings? Well, Tuesday evening's spotlight on the singing darling of the tea party mob should win you over for sure. Gosh, but golly, not only is he spouting the Obamunist-communist stupidity and encouraging populist reactionary zeal, but "he's black, has a ponytail and wears an earring"! Brady assures us that

"what's surprising about Marcus is that while he can be a little pointed at times, he also appears to have a lot of fun" and "Marcus knows what he believes and he's sticking with it."

One really disturbing angle of NPR's favorable coverage of the public face of this movement, is how it completely ignores how similar the ideology and rhetoric of the Tea Bagger movement is to the resurgent militia movement. Also, as readers have noted, compare this positive saturation coverage of the Tea Party reactionaries to NPR's negative and non-coverage of the anti-war movement and you can't help but notice how far to the right NPR's editorial preferences lean...