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PrintSeptember 14, 2009
Media Matter's Boehlert whines about media 'double standard" in covering protests
Did you know that some on the left believe that the 9/12 protests got preferential coverage at some major newspapers?
Eric Boehlert of Media Matter s thinks so. In fact, he takes as proof for this thesis that the Washington Post didn't cover the "100,000" person protest against the Iraq War in 2002 the same way they covered the 9/12 protests:
Behold the media's glaring double standard. Today, the Post puts the "tens of thousands" of Obama-hating tea bagger protesters on A1; makes it the lead story as a matter of fact.
Back in 2002, when more than 100,000 anti-war protesters gathered in the nation's capitol to protest the Bush administration, the same WashPost did its best to ignore them:The Washington Post put the story not on the front page, but in the Metro section with, as the paper's ombudsman later lamented, "a couple of ho-hum photographs that captured the protest's fringe elements."This simply proves again that when right-wing (and mostly white) conservatives get angry, it's big news. When liberals get angry, it's just annoying.
UPDATED: Credit goes to the NYT for being consistent. In 2002, the newspaper kept its article about the massive anti-war rally off Page One. Today, it kept its article (but not photo) about the much smaller 9/12 rally off Page One.
Remarkable. We have already noted the left's attempt to lowball the huge numbers at the 9/12 protest (if there were less than 100,000 at that demonstration on Saturday, I will run naked down Pennsylvania Avenue singing The Internationale while kissing a poster of Obama.)
So when Boehlert whines about coverage in the liberal WaPo and Times of the anti-war demonstration, he fails to catch the irony in his own brief. Perhaps WaPo covered the "fringe elements" of the leftist demonstration because about 80% of the country was supporting President Bush at the time. That would seem to leave only hardcore lefties - the "fringe" if you will -- to go against the grain and march in protest against a popular policy.
That was to change over the years, of course. But considering how both papers give short shrift to Pro-Life marches numbering in the hundreds of thousands, why should they bend over backward and cover a fringe demonstration against what, at the time, was a popular action by Bush?
Because they're liberal papers, damn it, and they should take care of their own.
Boehlert is a superior nitpicker. That's what they hired him to do at Media Matters. But his whine against media that by any stretch carries water for the Obama administration regularly rings a little hollow.
