And the truth is, while Smith and Martin are right that the movement has been hyped, it’s still a legitimate story. By all means, journalists should keep the Tea Parties in perspective, providing historical and electoral context. The movement shouldn’t be the frame for all political coverage, and we don’t need facile “what does the Tea Party think?” sidebars for every issue. But we should absolutely have a few sharp reporters on this beat. One of those reporters, Dave Weigel—the Washington Post blogger who is mentioned but not named in the Politico piece, and whom the Post hired after it had clearly fallen behind on this story—explained why today:
If a political movement, however loosely aggregated, is driving the policies of one party, it deserves copious and probing coverage. Yes, it’s frustrating for liberals that a few hundred tea party activists can steal the headlines by packing into town hall meetings. But understanding why that happened, how social networks and technology made that possible, and whether or not their worries were well-founded—that is obviously a job for political journalists.
“Driving” might be too strong a word, but this is basically right. (And, for those who are concerned, Weigel doesn’t accept the conservative critique of the coverage, either.) And if you’re not persuaded, consider this concluding point from Weigel:
Finally, every moment we’re talking about the grass-roots activists of the tea parties or the free-market groups who are trying to shape their messaging and strategy is a moment we’re not talking about Sarah Palin’s Facebook posts. Who can complain about that?
Amen to that.
Unfortunately, in talking about the tea party we have to talk about Sarah Palin since a significant portion of them are her, and Glen Beck's, followers.
It would be good for the press to note that there are really several camps of tea party thought with the single unifying aspect that they are activists who hold protests around a conservative banner. Some are Ron Paul libertarians, some are vestiges of the old Patriot movements, some are republicans trying to rinse the taint of the Bush years off themselves, some are just old people driven to excitement by chain emails which explain how the government took their 401k. Unfortunately, when you dig into many of their claims and examine their foundations, many display signs of false information and misplaced rage.
Not all:
http://thecrossedpond.com/
But many do.
#1 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 22 Apr 2010 at 08:24 PM
The tea party can not drive the discourse because the people who attend their events are paid to attend the events. The organizations that pay people to attend the events (News Corp, Koch industries etc.) are the ones who drive the agenda. The participants have no idea why they are there, no ideology to speak of. But they do wear funny costumes and have their hat in hand for hand outs.
There is some pretty good reporting out there on this but it does not make it to MSNBC, Fox or the NYT. Should the protests be covered? Well we cover press conferences so we can cover the tea party as a press conference but it is not a movement.
#2 Posted by Timothywmurray, CJR on Fri 23 Apr 2010 at 10:56 AM