In case you haven’t seen this, CNBC apparently spelled out/sought out what other cable channels have been merely courting for days. Via TPM:

CNBC approached Tea Party activists, looking for angry protest events that would make good television, according to a leaked email from a Tea Party discussion group. And one Tea Bagger responded by flagging an upcoming event that, he said, “should be a riot … literally.”


Yesterday, Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin sent an email, obtained by TPMmuckraker, to a Tea Party Google group. Martin told the group: “We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is for CNBC.”

Which takes things a tad further than Fox News’s Trace Gallagher saying the other day that Fox would return to live coverage of the president’s health care town hall if/when “any contentious questions, anybody yelling.” Or all of the cable channels competing to book immediate studio time with the angriest town hall attendees.

The “good TV” factor.