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.
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.