NYT: Cable Wars Are Killing Objectivity (FNC/CNN/MSNBC Tea Party Coverage)

The New York Times ^ | April 19, 2009 | David Carr

[2ndDivisionVet]

Apparently there is an ingredient in tea that causes hysteria when given to cable news anchors. How else to explain the coverage of the tax day tea parties on Wednesday, which was the day when we procrastinators finally mailed the check to the feds?

The movement — if that’s what it is — was spawned by a rant on Feb. 19 from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange during a live report by the CNBC reporter — if that’s what he is — Rick Santelli, suggesting that it was time to organize a “tea party” to protest government spending on failed mortgages.

The cable news networks took it from there. Fox News, after running more than 100 promos about its coverage of the event, which did a pretty effective job of marketing them at the same time, had wall-to-wall coverage on the anointed day and dispatched four of its leading hosts around the country to perform a kind of hybrid task, covering events that they also seemed to be leading.

And in the increasingly politicized environment between the covered and coverers, Susan Roesgen of CNN, covering a tax protest in Chicago, could not have been more contemptuous of the people she was interviewing, shaking her finger at them and shouting them down. In a move that I’m sure freaked out her bosses, she suggested that the protests were “antigovernment, anti-CNN.”

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC frantically belittled the rhetoric and motives of those involved in the tea party events, even as she spent oodles of air time on the rallies.

Cable news stations have been criticized for “event-izing” all manner_of_minor_news occurrences — President Obama’s first news conference comes to mind. But the Tax Day Tea Party was all but conceived, executed and deconstructed in the hothouse of cable news wars.

[2ndDivisionVet]

From the article: "The president was likened to Hitler on various posters at rallies, and a sign in Lafayette Park read, “Stand Idle While Some Kenyan Destroys America? I Don’t Think So.”

Boy, it's a good thing no one on the left can be accused of comparing President Bush to Hitler. And what's wrong with calling a Kenyan a Kenyan?

[Salvation]

There’s no war! Fox News Channel has won the battle as well as the ratings!

LOL!

[puppypusher]

The MSM has Not been objective in their reporting in the last sixteen years.They have done all they could to support the democrat party and liberalism and the destruction of the United States.

[Nosterrex]

Let me see, the NYT is discussing objectivity? I’m surprised that it can spell the word.

[THX 1138]

In a sense, we seem to be returning to the days of the party press, where news outlets reflected viewpoints of specific wings of political thought.

Do I even need to comment on this one?

[GeronL]

The hypocrisy is thick enough to cut with a dull rusty knife.

Its like 1984. History has been rewritten and apparently no one accused Bush of being Hitler and no one talked about killing him either. For PRAVDA to run this article is another sign of how in the tank they are.

A million people could have been out there on Wednesday but PRAVDA did not send a reporter to any of them. They took a few paragraphs from other sources and ran a slight article on A16 or something.

They did however have a reporter cover a protest over the closing of a Post Office in... the Bronx I think it was.

Utter contempt and disdain, and now they shake their fist at those media outlets who covered it. As if PRAVDA of the Obama State Media had no bias at all.

[Jeff Gordon]

let’s remember: the only thing Mr. Beck and the rest are running for is first place in the demo.

Eat your heart out NYT. You are a dead man walking. Beck and the rest are shoveling dirt on your grave.

[anniegetyourgun]

Cynicism designed to cover up the real bias of Carr. Funny to see him suggest others are only about ratings!

[blam]

" In a sense, we seem to be returning to the days of the party press, where news outlets reflected viewpoints of specific wings of political thought."

This is so funny. If the conservative side of the news makes it onto the airwaves as a counterweight to the 24/7 airing of the leftist views, then we're doomed.

These guys are unbelievable. It was just a few short years ago that we were laughing at the Soviet press...now it's the NYT.

[Drango]

When a media company sets itself as the party of opposition...

Oh please. I simply won't be lectured on objectivity by the NYSlimes.

[dawn53]

LOL! Rant on Mr. Carr. But my question is can you really believe a journalist who uses the word “inchoate” in an editorial is trying to reach mainstream America? /sarcasm

[WOSG]

Kenyan? Obama is a US citizen, so its NYT’s callout “Hey, lookee, some kooks”.

As for: “[FOX] covering events that they also seemed to be leading.” The Times is lying there.

[uptoolate]

Last Wednesday night from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., Fox News had an average of almost 3.4 million viewers, up more than a million compared with its average in March.
Now that's a mandate!

MSNBC got a bump as well, with 250,000 more viewers,
Conservatives addicted to the moronic rants of the hate spewing Keith and Rachel, kind of why we all look at a train wreck

while CNN was only slightly up.
Bill and Hillary were home for the night

[caveat emptor]

[skinkinthegrass]

Susan Roesgen of CNN, covering a tax protest....In a move that I’m sure freaked out her bosses, she suggested that the protests were “Anti-government, Anti-CNN.”

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!
All Rightly then....They've just renounced their "cherished objectivity"
....their real purpose is "to Parrot", the 0bambi Propaganda / Line.

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." - P. J. O'Rourke
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually, run out of other people’s money.” - Margaret Thatcher
"There are two sets of rules. One set for the rulers and another for the rest of us." —Richard Yancey, former IRS tax collector

[AmericanInTokyo]

Can someone photoshop in Richard Simmons behind him?? LOL!

[NonValueAdded]

Yeah, look who is talking!

[padre35]

Well they had to remove “objectivity” from the speil checking software..LOL

[eclecticEel]

How do you kill something that’s already dead, buried, and decomposed?

[Spktyr]

Not work safe answer: http://www.kdingo.net/champ/pics/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=9158&g2_serialNumber=2

Not for anyone under 18, either. However, it does offer a solution for shambling zombies like the Times.