Similar to my earlier posting about the difference in coverage between the deaths of the worthy Norman Borlaug and the unworthy Ted Kennedy, there’s this about the difference in coverage between Barky giving a speech, and million of Americans taking to the streets of DC:
On Saturday, September 12, 2009, President Barack Obama spoke before about 15, 000 people at a healthcare rally in Minneapolis. A few hours earlier, a crowd of between 70,000 and 1,200,000 citizens gathered in Washington, DC to protest excessive federal spending and intervention. I think we can safely conclude that any Tibetan monk or Zulu, blissfully unaware of American politics, would nonetheless conclude that the second event was at least as newsworthy as the first.
They’d be wrong. Between 2:00 and 4:00 PM PDT of that day, I monitored the Google News website, which in recent years has acquired some of the aura of omniscient impartiality that the New York Times once enjoyed. As of 3 PM, here’s how the two stories were treated:
“Obama Takes to the Road to Promote Healthcare Reform”: 14,488 news articles
“Tea Party Protesters March on Washington”: 126 news articles
The first story remained at the top of the main page throughout. The second appeared on the main page from about 2:00 to 2:30 and then disappeared into the recesses of the “More Stories – U.S.” page. Then it reappeared in the lower reaches of the main page at 3:45, as if the omission had caused some protest or embarrassment. As of 4 PM, Obama’s speech was still on top with 15,891 news articles cited and the DC rally had again disappeared, after having peaked at 130 cited articles.
Bias? What bias? I don’t see no bias. As many as two MILLION people show up to protest the slide into socialism, and the major media doesn’t really see it as a truly newsworthy event.
But Teh Won gives a speech, and boy howdy, that’s some good news fodder right there!
2 Responses to “Protest vs President: the coverage”
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The bias, as any libertarian knows and expects, is citizens vs. government. Look for news reports on the demonstrations for peace before invading Iraq (the largest public assemblies in world history), and for democracy at the Bush inaugurations vs. government on TV.
What else do you expect?
More pictures…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42406957@N04/
According to the Park Service (disinterested, non-partisan, & always has best estimates of crowds) 40,000-60,000 teabaggers showed: 3% the number that Republicans predicted.
If you find a more credible source than the Park Service, please let me know, and post it.
Yes, the media united to report higher numbers; it’s called a big story.
Under 100,000 is not a big story.
It’s numerically pathetic.
It was already intellectually pathetic.
> It was already intellectually pathetic.
Wow. Such brilliant rhetoric.
> According to the Park Service…
Link, please.