I was really struck by that chart Mistermix posted the other day detailing the difference between media coverage of the tea party and media coverage of #OWS. Here it is again:
If you want another piece of evidence about how the media agenda is not only not liberal, but in most cases fueled by conservative activists, think about this. NPR ignored Occupy Wall Street for two weeks. A couple hours after Erick Erickson created a tumblr (which now has only about 20 pictures) for the 53%, Suzy Khimm was giving it wide coverage in the Washington Post.
Certified Mutant Enemy
Tumblr – the place to go to find nude pictures of your favorite celebrities…
Bruce S
“wide coverage at the Washington Post”
I have no idea why Ezra Klein allows that useless, douche-bag outfit to attach themselves to his excellent website.
4tehlulz
@Certified Mutant Enemy: EVEN MARTY FELDMAN?
El Cid
Tea Partiers really are dangerous to your children. Their anti-fluoridation as anti-globalism crusade gained a victory.
trollhattan
Hell yeah. Before the big nationwide bagger débutante ball on 4.15.09, Fox and the Usual Suspects were flogging the thing before the nation for weeks, and basically had their anchors and, uh, personalities host individual events.
We got Neil Cavuto–yeah, you can be jealous of us now. We also harvested Michael Reagan, Cliff Clavin (I’m not making that up) and a bunch of yellers I didn’t know. It was a circus and Fox was there in very high profile. I have pics. I’m still curious about Sal Russo’s actual role.
Whatever OWS is or is not, it’s inarguable (by the sane) that it’s the very definition of a grassroots movement, beginning in one place with a few, growing and now spreading nationwide. I’ve yet to see any high or even medium profile corporate support, something evident from the get go with the baggers.
BGinCHI
Platform.
Erick son of Erick has burrowed in. He’s part of them now.
What incentive do well-paid media types have to rock their boat, given that the food and drinks and healthcare are all provided by the targets of grassroots rage?
Bupkis.
dave
How easy can this chart be created for other media events? I think charts like this could be a big key to combating the myth of the liberal media.
slag
Sometimes I think the “liberal media” is just trying to increase the crazification factor by making me crazy.
Yutsano
@4tehlulz: Rule 34 dude. Rule 34.
And the media was never liberal. If they were it wouldn’t bother them so bad to be called such. It’s just facts have that damn librul bias.
boss bitch
Speaking of the liberal media. Why is there no post about the AJA bill being voted on today? Please call your senators. I know the odds of it getting to Obama’s desk is almost nil but we need every Democrat to vote yes. Can’t give the Repubs a talking point.
By the way, Ben Nelson is leaning yes. Call! Call every Blue Dog.
cleek
Up on the hill / They’ve got time to burn / There’s no return
jl
So, OWS’s fault they didn’t hire a PR firm. What losers. Of course people should ignore losers.
I’m auditioning for a CW talking head. How do you folks like that line?
boss bitch
@cleek:
Har. Har.
jwb
@Bruce S: Didn’t Khimm’s piece appear on Ezra Klein’s blog?
GregB
My con friends never have a reply when I tell them that the number one selling newspaper in the country is the Wall Stree Journal, the number one cable news network is Fox and the number one radio blabbermouth is impotent Rush Limbaugh.
But, but, but…..conservatives don’t have a voice in the librul meedeeyah!
Downpuppy
To be fair, the TP was a one day multi-city event with massive publicity, while OWS is ongoing & growing. Also, the chart stops a couple days ago, and OWS must be in the lead by now.
Of course, that’s only because they’re getting arrested by the hundreds.
slag
@jwb: Yes. Liberal self-loathers.
Hill Dweller
As I said on Mistermix’s original thread, compare the Solyndra coverage to the lack of coverage for far more consequential stories like the Bush Interior Dept corruption(which cost a Billion+) or the billions disappearing in Iraq.
The Koch brothers doing business with Iran should be huge, and cost the right wing a-holes who depend on their money, but the “liberal” media doesn’t want much to do with it.
The debt-ceiling debacle should have earned the Republicans scorn form every corner of this country. Instead, we got the ‘both sides do it’ horseshit. Even someone like Brian Williams goes on Letterman and blames the Dems for not compromising.
Hopefully the OWS movement can at least change the narrative in the short term, but long-term the incentives have to change for journalists in this country. I’m not sure how to do that without an educated electorate.
Cat Lady
Well, take comfort in all this. They’ve gone from “first they ignore you” to “then they laugh at you” in record time. Everyone be prepared to man the battle stations for the “then they fight you” part of the program.
opium4themasses
I believe this chart outlines the difference between grassroots and astroturf.
beergoggles
You do remember when the 200,000+ immigration reform rally was held in DC and the local and national media completely ignored it right?
debg
Khimm’s piece has inspired several bloggers to make useful points about Erick son of Erick. Brad DeLong’s post is hilarious–almost tboggian–in its response.
Xboxershorts
@trollhattan:
Sal Russo is the Freedomworks bag man. He launders money for political activist groups through his law firm Russo Marsh.
http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2009/10/31/freedomworks-little-frankenstein-lab-oregon/
Xboxershorts
@cleek:
Thank you Cleek, that was nice!
Bruce S
#14 – “Khimm on Ezra’s blog”?
I have no idea. I was making a dumb joke. I hope not, given the inference in the post above, but it probably did. Frankly, as much as I find Ezra very useful and definitely honor his efforts as the hardest working man in Beltway journalism, he’s moderated some since leaving TAP for meaner pastures. Seems a bit too eager to find some signs of intelligent life among the weeds of an insane GOP. Kind of blew it early on giving some hint of credibility to Paul Ryan…
singfoom
Slightly OT, but I attended Occupy Chicago’s General Assembly last night after work. My completely unscientific count put the attendance in the 300-400 range. I found the people’s microphone to be a very interesting experience, causing you to think about the words the speaker was saying more by your repetition than just listening to a speaker.
It was an odd GA because they weren’t discussing any issues to be decided, they just opened it up to anyone who wanted to speak.
Some speakers were good, some were bad. The most amusing point came during the first speakers explanation of the hand signs for the GA. When the OT sign, the “triangle of power” came up, someone shouted how it was an Illuminati symbol and they shouldn’t use it. It made me chuckle.
I’ll be going back again and definitely on Saturday, when all the large events should be happening across all the Occupy protests.
Also, NC has a good post about the 2nd Occupy Boston location being broken up last night: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/twitter-reports-of-boston-cops-beating-participants-in-occupyboston-breaking-up-encampment.html
ETA: To make this slightly more on topic, I saw no evidence of any major media organization coverage at the GA that was held after a large march.
handsmile
As mistermix indicated at the time, the chart illustrating his “First, they ignore you” thread was taken from an October 7 article by Nate Silver at his fivethirtyeight blog: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/police-clashes-spur-coverage-of-wall-street-protests/?pagewanted=all
Several commenters at Silver’s site made the mordant observation that the trajectory for “news hits” for the Tea Party would be considerably altered if reports from Fox News were to be removed from the graph’s analysis.
On that mistermix thread, the commenter Calming Influence posted a memorable remark that I expect to be deploying in the future: “Of all the things the liberal media suck at, they suck the worst at being liberal.”
On Sunday, the redoubtable Digby posted a piece, “Run the damn tape,” that featured a video interview with Jesse LaGreca. Known at Daily Kos as the blogger “Ministry of Truth”, his interview at OWS with a Fox News reporter last week was widely hailed across the intertubes, including here at BJ. His concluding remarks in the Digby video were a precise diagnosis:
“To the media at large, when you ask why are these people here [at the OWS protests]: We’re getting screwed and you’re not helping. Maybe changing that would be a little better for your ratings.”
Brad DeLong
Who else is noticing Erick, Son of Erick?
kindness
Yes, NPR is major suckage right now.
What is up with their web site? Anyone know? I’ve tried commenting on several stories over the last week and half the time it won’t allow comments (yesterday’s Cokie Roberts pack o’ lies was prominent on my list but no, no comments)
trollhattan
@Xboxershorts:
He’s all over the joint. He also “owns” if that’s the right word, the “Tea Party Express.”
We do owe him our thanks for helping the Dems hold the senate, because Sal supported Sharon Angle and not-a-witch girl.
handsmile
@debg: (#22)
Thanks for the tip about Brad DeLong! Checking his website, i found yet another entry on his multi-volume work, “Why Oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps?”, this time on Robert Samuelson, the economics columnist for Newsweek and Kaplan Test Prep Daily:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/why-oh-why-cant-we-have-a-better-press-corps-robert-samuelson-edition.html
DeLong’s comment should be the last shovelful necessary to bury the reputation of that moldering mandarin.
A Ghost To Most
sorta off-topic, but I just saw Will f-in Cain’s title on CNN as “Media Entrepreneur”.
Am I behind? Is Media Entrepreneur the new Grifter?
Naive and Sentimental
Trying to read the 53 tumblr gives me a weird sensation. Rhetoric can seem to give off a certain aura and the 53 tumblr just seems like a deep bed of resentment.
The 53 tumblr may quite revealing of the resentment some have for those in worse shape than them. After all, this is a site meant to counter stories of horrible economic tragedy and people living hand to mouth with “suck it up whiners.”
The 53 tumblr posts seem to fall into 3 catagories
1) I really should be posting on the 99% tumblr but my ideology prevents it. (makes met think of this)
2) I work hard in my job and you whiners should quit your 2 minimum wage jobs that let you buy food and make something of yourself, get a $200,000 loan and go back to college or something
3) I’m John Galt, bitch!
I suggest everyone read the Slactivists in depth work on the Left Behind series, because it seems more and more it serves as a microcosm for the entire conservative movement. A bizarre mix of people addicted to feeling indignant and loving a triumphalism of knowing ‘those’ people will get what’s coming to them eventually.
Sarah
This is hardly “proof” that the media doesn’t tilt left. They ignored OWS because these people are a bunch of clowns that make the entire left look bad. Do you really WANT the media to focus more on the open promotion of communism, socialism, anarchy, class warfare, and murdering the rich that is going on at the OWS protests? And the flip side of the coin, the widespread coverage of the Tea Party, was overwhelming negative by every outlet not named “Fox News.” CNN and MSNBC couldn’t cover it enough to make the movement look as negative and fueled by racism as possible. Not all coverage is good coverage, and it’s a pretty poor argument to say that the Tea Party getting more coverage automatically proves that the media doesn’t left.