Occupy Wall Street = Left Wing Cable TV Moment?
Politico’s Keach Hagey smartly writes about Occupy Wall Street and how it’s drawing Progressive TV…
The enthusiastic coverage from Current and MSNBC at times has seemed like a mirror image of Fox News’s cheerleading for the early tea party rallies, giving credibility to those who argue that the movement could be the left’s tea party. But those who are running the coverage deny that they have stepped over the line from journalism to activism.
“We were there covering the event to find out what the story was all about, not to promote a specific agenda that any of the protesters had last night,” said Rich Stockwell, the executive producer of “The Ed Show.”
In fact, they had not even planned to anchor the show from the protests on Wednesday night, but after going down to shoot some interviews that afternoon and seeing the size of the crowds — ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 — and hearing complaints that echoed many that Schultz makes nightly on his show, they made a last-minute change.
Stockwell said that the show had been monitoring the protests for weeks but did not cover them until Monday, following the arrest of 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday
Inside Cable News 
October 8, 2011 at 7:44 am
From what I’ve seen the coverage of the Wall Street protests is a mirror image of the coverage of the Tea Party protests of the last two years. The similarities of the two movements are striking.
Analogies, by those on the left, to the Arab spring are way off base
Both started small and grew to large unfocused movements.
Both were usurped by large political organizations; the Republican Party and multinational corporations on the right and unions and various leftest groups on the left.
Both groups were/are understated by the US mainstream political parties although the Republican Party has tried, somewhat successfully, to absorb the Tea Party.
Both are covered in as a revolutionary movements or extreme fringe parties by the media, depending on the political POV of the media outlet. All media outlets tend to cover the more extreme parts of the protests; the people wearing funny costumes or carrying signs with hateful messages.
In the end I think the Wall Street protesters will be a larger movement, as they have a bigger base to draw from, but the Tea Party will have more influence as their controllers are more focused and better financed.
October 8, 2011 at 2:28 pm
The MSM loves the OWS crowd and hates the Tea Party and the coverage reflects that.
October 8, 2011 at 2:37 pm
I don’t see any logical comparison to the Tea Party at all. It started as and continues to be average citizens seeking to have their grievances addressed by the elected representatives through peaceful assembly and engagement in the political process – which is precisely how the system is supposed to work in America. Many of these tea party people used to be known as the Silent Majority.
The Republican Party may be listening more intently to Tea Party issues now, but “usurping” is ridiculous. For one thing, there’s nothing to usurp – the Tea Parties have never has been well organised, at least not in the traditional sense of the word, which is also why there’s almost zero corporate money funding it. A few hundred bucks is all that’s needed for county park permit and a megaphone. Sarah Palin and her pals get the word out for free.
The DC version of this Occupy thing has managed to occupy and shut down Air & Space Museum and Smithsonian. I guess the message is, “Screw the average American who spent their hard-earned money to finally visit their nation’s capital and see the places they’ve only read about.” These are mostly just angry people in need of any excuse to cause trouble.
October 8, 2011 at 3:40 pm
What dose the Air and Space Museum have to do with Wall Street?…and how dose closing it down stick it to the evil Rich?
October 8, 2011 at 7:21 pm
I’m betting some of hopes for a liberal Tea Party are fading fast. Local TV report on “Occupy Cleveland” was dominated by a guy who confronted the crowd with, “I don’t believe in a thing you people are doing here!” As they buzzed like angry bees, he looked like an adult among children.
October 8, 2011 at 7:22 pm
After thinking it through, I don’t see a problem with MSNBC taking this on as a story they want to heavily cover. It is political, it is happening now, and it’s something their audience seems particularly interested in.
There’s a fine line between “covering” and “promoting”, and having your opinion-head hosts enthusiastically support something is not the same as having your organisation actively promoting it. FNC has often been falsely accused of this very thing… if the standard isn’t the same for both then it really isn’t a “standard”.
October 8, 2011 at 7:47 pm
I’m praying MSNBC covers this like a blanket, because:
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, I give you… YOUR OCCUPIERS!
October 8, 2011 at 10:58 pm
Now will they accuse the OWS with being Racist like they did with the Tea Party?
October 9, 2011 at 7:21 am
Up w. Chris Hayes has a special Occupy Wall Street logo on their crawl space. Power to the peple.
October 9, 2011 at 10:37 am
Politics Now Thanks for the information – glad to see an independent perspective to the situation…
Thanks for the information – glad to see an independent perspective to the situation…