Tea party protest and the media.

Tens of thousands of protesters showed up to show their anger against government spending, taxes and several other concerns they have about the country’s direction. Amazingly, with that much people protesting, several media outlets paid little to almost no attention to the protesters. C-Span and Foxnews were the only media outlets, which gave some coverage to the event. CNN and MSNBC opted to show the President’s health-care rally in Minnesota. Another thing that caught my eye was the media coverage. MSNBC dismissed the protesters as right wing cronies who have been hyped up by Foxnews and conservative talk radio. A guest on MSNBC said it was a racial issue, she said those protesters are Foxnews viewers, people who did not vote for the President in the first place and folks that agreed with Glen Beck that Healthcare coverage for all is Obama’s reparations for black people. CNN had a hard time covering the event; protesters continually disrupted their coverage of the events. What was clear about the event was that majority of them are Foxnews viewers and most of their resentment has nothing to do with Healthcare, taxation or the government. Foxnews had Glen Beck on to cover the event, he described the protesters as patriotic Americans, people fed up with their government and he had everything good in this world to say about them. Liberal leaning media were more likely to look for extreme signs, diversity of the crowd and the rhetoric of the speakers but conservative leaning media drummed up criticism of the government and pointed to the protests as an indication that Americans are fed up of the government.
Although the tea party lacked a clear message, the protest was peaceful and insightful- some accused the government of spending too much, some complained about their taxes (even though people are actually paying less taxes under Obama), some complained about the health-care as government take over, some held signs mocking the president and some are just there to cheer on. Several conservative leaders attended the tea party protest.