Well, not MY newspaper but the Gannett paper in the town where I work (Howell), the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus.
As I mentioned in my blog the other day (It’s not just FOX News, People), the Press & Argus is doing their damndest to promote the teabaggers. That day there were two articles about the teabaggers, one on the front page. The next day? Yup. Two more.
Today there were THREE.
Is Gannett doing this nationally?
Only one of the three appears online. It is at the top of page three, the County section.
Tea Party Express to miss county
The Tea Party Express bus — one of the movement’s key public outreach efforts — won’t be stopping in Livingston County this year, but is scheduled to spend most of this weekend in Michigan on a tour aimed at unseating supporters of President Barack Obama’s health-care plan and big government in all of its forms.
Article? Editorial is more like it. It goes on to give all the details of every local stop of the Tea Party Express like a dutiful promoter would do. And they covered in detail a recent meeting.
RetakeOurGov founder Wes Nakagiri said Wednesday’s meeting at the Cromaine District Library in Hartland Township was “jammed to capacity,” so much so that 25 people met outside the library “in the rain.”
Just to get some perspective, the library’s largest room, the Community Room, where they met holds 75 people. So they had 100 people show up. Recall also that this is a county with 156,951 people in it. That’s 0.06% of the population.
One of the other two articles was about a new Tea Party Federation reported on by the Associated Press:
Several tea party leaders announced plans Thursday to form a national federation to promote the movement’s conservative message and to counter the idea that the tea parties are politically unsophisticated and disorganized.Tea party leaders from Memphis, Tenn., Richmond, Va., and Orlando, Fla., along with representatives of several other groups announced the new National Tea Party Federation during a rally outside the Minnesota Capitol. They said 21 tea party groups around the nation had joined the federation…
Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a tea party favorite, participated in the rally.
Gee. Sounds a lot like “Community Organizing”, doesn’t it? Has anyone told Sarah Palin about this???
Finally, the third article is yet another one about the Tea Party Express, this time about how they are rolling into Bart Stupak’s territory to challenge him. It’s been replaced by this article talking about him stepping down. The Press & Argus print edition, of course, mentions the Tea Party in the headline.
When I see this kind of unbelievably slanted and lopsided “reporting”, I can’t help but hope that the print editions of these newspapers do eventually fail. With no competition, they are free to sway public opinion by making a small-but-vocal/screaming group of people seem much larger and more influential than they are.
Are you folks seeing this from other Gannett newspapers in your area? Is this a Gannett thing or just a Howell, Michigan thing? Let me know in the comments.
I’m just sayin’…
