Media coverage of Tax Day; Christian Science Monitor article
The source is known to be unbiased despite the name.
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from the April 15, 2009 edition
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Atlanta - They came to public squares and parks across the country by the
hundreds and thousands on Tax Day, April 15, hoping for nothing less than a
second American revolution. Their "tea parties" are part of a burgeoning
national movement, they said - a nonpartisan wave of Americans outraged by
Washington's profligacy and its intrusion into every aspect of daily life.
And yet ... only a whisper in the mainstream press, they complain.
To tea partyers, the disconnect points up the wide divide between elite
media and the population at large. To others, any downplaying of the
protests is just a symptom of the broader reordering of the media world.
The hold that a few media conglomerates have held on the dissemination of
news is quickly vanishing. Blogs and upstart websites like
HuffingtonPost.com are providing a wider array of voices and viewpoints. The
decidedly liberal HuffingtonPost, for instance, sent 1,800 "citizen
journalists," toting iPhones and laptops, to cover the tea parties. In
response to such "competition," traditional newsrooms are beginning to shift
their mind-sets, too, using Web-based networking sites like Twitter to try
to become more immediate and relevant to people across the US.
In that vein, Wednesday's Tea Party protests are a kind of D-Day for
alternative journalism.
"Today is one of those days that may lead to more awareness that this is a
great tool and a great way to connect with people," says Jen Reeves, a new
media specialist at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia. "It's
fabulous that more media outlets are looking in and peering in."
The mainstream media have, to some extent, questioned the real grass-roots
aspect of the tea-party movement. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
called it "astroturf" in a column this week - implying that political and
corporate forces lie behind it. Critics say that mainstream and blogosphere
ideologues are both acting as "parasites on a populist movement," skewing
the truth and overstepping the bounds of responsible reporting in the
process.
Cable news channel Fox News has jumped on the bandwagon, at times blurring
the line between promotion and coverage as two of its top-ranked
personalities - Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck - get set to cover Wednesday's
events, according to Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog
group in Washington.
"[Partisan news organizations] are normalizing conspiracy theories and
making hysteria more palatable," says Erikka Knuti of Media Matters, noting
what she calls a "hysteria ... about socialism, fascism, and a new world
order."
Fox News grandstanding aside, the enduring momentum of the tea-party
movement, which began in February, underscores real grievances, which
participants say the mainstream media have largely ignored - providing an
opportunity for alternative, Web-based news sources.
"Who's actually reporting on this?" says Michael Patrick Leahy, a
Nashville-based blogger and tea-party organizer who will appear today on
PJTV, a Web-based, right-leaning news channel. If there is slight media
coverage of the tea parties, he says, "we may well look back historically
and determine that April 15th, 2009, is the day the mainstream media died."
While the tea-party protests may reveal hypocrisy on both sides of the
blogosphere, the coverage of on-site citizen reporters should be welcomed,
not feared, by mainstream media organizations, says Ms. Reeves. If news
organizations ignore or downplay such events, they risk missing the
conversation that Americans are having day to day.
The growth of information is an organic process, she says. "I feel as if
journalists - if we don't try to learn how it works - we are missing a
backchannel of life."
-------------
from the April 15, 2009 edition
- Print this
- Letter to the Editor
- Republish
- Email and share
- E-mail newsletters
- RSS
Atlanta - They came to public squares and parks across the country by the
hundreds and thousands on Tax Day, April 15, hoping for nothing less than a
second American revolution. Their "tea parties" are part of a burgeoning
national movement, they said - a nonpartisan wave of Americans outraged by
Washington's profligacy and its intrusion into every aspect of daily life.
And yet ... only a whisper in the mainstream press, they complain.
To tea partyers, the disconnect points up the wide divide between elite
media and the population at large. To others, any downplaying of the
protests is just a symptom of the broader reordering of the media world.
The hold that a few media conglomerates have held on the dissemination of
news is quickly vanishing. Blogs and upstart websites like
HuffingtonPost.com are providing a wider array of voices and viewpoints. The
decidedly liberal HuffingtonPost, for instance, sent 1,800 "citizen
journalists," toting iPhones and laptops, to cover the tea parties. In
response to such "competition," traditional newsrooms are beginning to shift
their mind-sets, too, using Web-based networking sites like Twitter to try
to become more immediate and relevant to people across the US.
In that vein, Wednesday's Tea Party protests are a kind of D-Day for
alternative journalism.
"Today is one of those days that may lead to more awareness that this is a
great tool and a great way to connect with people," says Jen Reeves, a new
media specialist at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia. "It's
fabulous that more media outlets are looking in and peering in."
The mainstream media have, to some extent, questioned the real grass-roots
aspect of the tea-party movement. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
called it "astroturf" in a column this week - implying that political and
corporate forces lie behind it. Critics say that mainstream and blogosphere
ideologues are both acting as "parasites on a populist movement," skewing
the truth and overstepping the bounds of responsible reporting in the
process.
Cable news channel Fox News has jumped on the bandwagon, at times blurring
the line between promotion and coverage as two of its top-ranked
personalities - Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck - get set to cover Wednesday's
events, according to Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog
group in Washington.
"[Partisan news organizations] are normalizing conspiracy theories and
making hysteria more palatable," says Erikka Knuti of Media Matters, noting
what she calls a "hysteria ... about socialism, fascism, and a new world
order."
Fox News grandstanding aside, the enduring momentum of the tea-party
movement, which began in February, underscores real grievances, which
participants say the mainstream media have largely ignored - providing an
opportunity for alternative, Web-based news sources.
"Who's actually reporting on this?" says Michael Patrick Leahy, a
Nashville-based blogger and tea-party organizer who will appear today on
PJTV, a Web-based, right-leaning news channel. If there is slight media
coverage of the tea parties, he says, "we may well look back historically
and determine that April 15th, 2009, is the day the mainstream media died."
While the tea-party protests may reveal hypocrisy on both sides of the
blogosphere, the coverage of on-site citizen reporters should be welcomed,
not feared, by mainstream media organizations, says Ms. Reeves. If news
organizations ignore or downplay such events, they risk missing the
conversation that Americans are having day to day.
The growth of information is an organic process, she says. "I feel as if
journalists - if we don't try to learn how it works - we are missing a
backchannel of life."