Wall Street protests

The Occupy Wall Street protestors have received overwhelmingly positive coverage from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) news networks, as they used their airtime to publicize and promote the aggressively leftist movement. In just the first eleven days of October, ABC, CBS and NBC flooded their morning and evening newscasts with a whopping 33 full stories or interview segments on the protesters. This was a far cry from the greeting the Tea Party received from the Big Three as that conservative protest movement was initially ignored (only 13 total stories in all of 2009) and then reviled.

Where the Tea Party was met with skeptical claims of their motivations -- with some reporters claiming they were merely corporate backed puppets and others implying they were spurred on by their racist opposition to the first black president – the Occupy Wall Street crowd was depicted as an almost genial “grassroots” movement.

In an editorial today entitled "Make way for the occupiers"* the Washington Post praised the National Park Service for extending a permit for the left-wing protesters behind the End the Machine protests at Freedom Plaza that briefly shut down the Air & Space Museum last Saturday after a security incident.

"If any city should go the extra mile to accommodate free expression, it's Washington, D.C.," the Post noted, before getting to the real reason why the paper is glad the Park Service gave protesters a permit lasting until December 30. The group could become violent otherwise, the paper's editorial board hinted:

One day after lauding the persistence of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, CNN's American Morning pressured conservative contributor Erick Erickson to "admit" that the protests are indeed "resonating," and that his own counter-movement is much smaller.

"You've got to – you've got to admit it. The 'Occupy Wall Street' folks are resonating," Romans insisted to Erickson. "I mean, we just had an ORC poll this week that showed that majority of Americans have heard of the movement. The 'We Are the 53' is much smaller." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

PBS's Charlie Rose opened last night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post GOP presidential economic policy debate by noting the round table format was like a “kind of kitchen table where families for generations have come together to talk and solve their problems.”

But through much of the debate it sounded more like Thanksgiving dinner with your liberal aunt and uncle as panelist Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post hammered the candidates from the left and moderator Charlie Rose used a 27-year-old Reagan sound bite to push candidates to come out in favor of tax increases.

As the Occupy Everything crowd marches in dozens of cities nationwide, it’s obvious their goal is nothing less than “global revolution.” It’s the phrase that headlines the live video feed. It’s the sentiment that flows through their entire series of events – from signs to guest speakers. Egyptian speaker Mohammed Ezzeldin encouraged the crowd with comments such as “We have nothing to lose but our chains,” and “Long live revolution.” One-time comedienne Roseanne Barr simply called for bankers to be “beheaded.”

But anarchists, socialists, anti-capitalists and Hollywood idiots chanting “Vive la revolution” isn’t big news. What is news is that the news industry is behind them. This isn’t simply the case of select individuals in journalism supporting the protests. They always do. The Washington Post ran four separate pro-Occupier op-eds in the Sunday Oct. 9, paper. And that’s just on one day. CNN’s Roland Martin called the protesters “American patriots.” The big news here is that two separate news unions, including the newspaper guild, the recognized union for many print and online journalists, and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) are fully behind the radical message of Occupy Wall Street.

On Tuesday, NewsBusters told you about some of the wealthy television news anchors hypocritically supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement.

As an interesting follow-up, Brian Warner of Celebrity Net Worth has published a list of the top ten richest celebrities that have as of now officially backed the protesters:

It appears Bill Maher and Rachel Maddow have now totally forgotten the new civility edict issued after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.) was shot this past January.

On The Rachel Maddow Show Tuesday, Maher said of the protesters demonstrating near the homes of some New York millionaires earlier in the day, "If a brick came through Rupert Murdoch’s apartment, yes, I have a feeling Fox News would be a lot more gentle on the Wall Street people." Maddow thought that was funny (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Unlike most liberal media members, MSNBC's Chris Matthews isn't sure the Occupy Wall Street movement is good for the president or the Democratic Party.

Quite the contrary, he not only doesn't think Obama would receive "big applause" if he visited the protesters, on Tuesday's "Hardball" he also said, "Let's not forget the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House at numerous times in our lifetimes, and they didn't fix the tax system when they had all the power in the world" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CBS's Bigad Shaban filed a puff piece about the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators on Tuesday's Early Show, trumpeting their "self-operating mini-community in lower Manhattan" and how they were "hungry for change," all the while ignoring the radical left wing politics of many in attendance. Shaban took more time to note that "this isn't your average protest. Yoga classes are taught in the off-time."

Co-anchors Chris Wragge and Erica Hill played up the "mini-village, complete with a daily newspaper, recycling, a free breakfast buffet, [and] yoga" during their promo for the correspondent's report. Shaban picked up where his colleagues left off with his "not your average protest" line, and added that "a makeshift library has been set up with at least 1500 books...and the grounds even has (sic) its own medical tent and newspaper, 'The Occupied Wall Street Journal.'" [video clips available below the jump]

Citing a poll showing that 51 percent of Americans have heard of the Wall Street protests, CNN's American Morning co-hosts lobbed some compliments toward the protesters on Tuesday. Co-host Christine Romans made sure to emphasize that "the movement is really resonating."

This is the same network that has been following the protests for weeks and speculating if they will become the liberal version of the Tea Party. In contrast, CNN featured some controversial coverage of the original Tea Parties back in 2009, and anchor Anderson Cooper even employed an obscene term to describe them. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

The inevitable question about radio blowhard and MSNBC action hero Ed Schultz -- is he dense or dishonest? That he's both is also a distinct possibility.

Schultz piously fulminated against Republican congressman Peter King of New York on his radio show yesterday for suggesting that public policy enacted in response to mob demands from the streets, as occurred during the '60s that liberals still consider so groovy, man, isn't such a great idea (audio clips after page break) --

On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer interviewed Obama advisor David Plouffe and asked about the frustration of the left-wing Occupy Wall Street protesters: "These people are out there and they're angry at Wall Street, the so-called fat cats....They're also angry at Democrats and the administration for not taking them on and doing anything about it."

Extremists in Guy Fawkes masks, Code Pinkers and "professional anarchists," have camped out in New York City to protest Wall Street, greed and the capitalist system. Through social media the first protest in New York's financial district has sparked copycat protests in more than a hundred cities. In a video posted on The Blaze, organizer Nelini Stamp made it clear that what she wants is "to change the capitalist system that we have today because it's not working for any of us." Moments later she said the conversation needed to begin about how "to reform and bring, you know, sort of revolutionary change to the States." She also labeled the OWS events part of a "new age radical movement."

Yet you're unlikely to hear about that from the liberal national news media, who have ignored the radical leftist underpinnings of the movement in nearly 9 out of 10 stories thus far.

So enthused about promoting the far-left protests, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer on Monday night's World News championed “the Occupy Wall Street movement” by ludicrously claiming that “as of tonight, it has spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries -- every continent but Antarctica.”

Protests against the wealthy in “thousands of countries,” including Cuba, China and every country in Africa? Per the U.S. State Department, however, there are only 195 nation states in the world, so Sawyer imagined five times as many protests as could possibly have occurred. (Video below)

Yesterday, in a different post about long-term unemployment, I wrote: "Of all the reality-denying aspects of Obama administration press coverage, the usually implicit but occasionally explicit assertion that he and his people are just helpless bystanders in an economic calamiity is easily among the most annoying."

Bloomberg's Mike Dorning triggered the annoyance meter today with an "analysis" contending that President Obama's move from being a "conciliator" (quoting an alleged "expert") to supporting "populist causes" and sympathizing with the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street assemblage "may provide some inoculation" against the continuing bad economy -- as if Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the their party bear no conceivable responsibility for current economic conditions. Here are the first seven paragraphs of Dorning's dreck (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

It really is amazing this man has his own one hour, nationally televised show on a so-called news network.

On Monday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC's Al Sharpton, four times in the course of roughly twenty minutes, actually called the liberal movement that he and most of his media colleagues adore "Occupation Wall Street" (video follows with commentary):

Serious question: if he ever had it, has Ed Schultz totally lost it?  There's lots to be said about the Occupy Wall Street movement.  But of all the cockamamie comments, of all the nutty non sequiturs, surely Ed Schultz's takes the crazy cake.

On his MSNBC show tonight, Schultz claimed that what lies behind Republican criticism of Occupy is . . . racism.  In a beyond-bizarre analogy, Schultz somehow said that there's "no difference" between GOP congressman Peter King's criticism of Occupy Wall Street and Trent Lott's 2002 birthday-party praise for Strom Thurmond. Video after the jump.
 

Thanks, Reverend Al. Really.  Sure, we know that the left is all about the redistribution of wealth rather than its generation.  Still, it's instructive to hear a leading lefty say it in such stark terms.  As clear a statement of the manifesto since candidate Obama told Joe The Plumber that "spread the wealth around" is the way to go.  

On his MSNBC show this evening, Sharpton declared that his view of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it should be about "really, how we distribute the wealth in this country." View video after the jump.
 

CBS sided with supporters of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests on Monday's Early Show, bringing on former Democratic Senator Russ Feingold to boost the left-leaning demonstrations, with no Republican and/or conservative critics appearing as guests during the program. Feingold slammed Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain as "un-American" for his critique of the protests.

Near the end of her interview of the Wisconsin politician, anchor Erica Hill raised Cain's attack on the continuing anti-corporate rallies: "Republican candidate Herman Cain, weighing in over the weekend. He said that, basically, it's un-American to protest capitalism. Businesses have to make money, and if they can do a better job making money oversea- it's an unfortunate reality for many Americans- but they're concerned about their bottom line. Can there be some sort of common ground here?"

From the editorial page to the news pages to a page of graphic design, the spreading leftist protest known as Occupy Wall Street occupied major swathes of Sunday’s New York Times, and the mood was celebratory – at last the left wing (or as the Times puts it, “populist message”) is off the mat and fighting back.

In the paper’s Sunday Review, journalism professor and veteran leftist Todd Gitlin gushed over the leftist revival on Wall Street (while attacking the Tea Party) in “The Left Declares Its Independence.”

CBS's Bigad Shaban failed to disclose the far-left politics of an "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrator on Monday's Early Show. Jesse LaGreca, a Daily Kos contributor who wrote in August that "Hurricane Irene is like having Christmas early" for Republicans, was identified on-screen as simply a "Wall Street protester." Shaban also barely devoted any time to critics of the nascent movement.

Leftist media critics resent that newspapers have a "Business" section or that PBS used to show "Wall Street Week," as if reporting on business automatically means you're pro-business. The Washington Post on Sunday seemed to be working overtime to publish an Anti-Business section, with two columns endorsing the "Occupy Wall Street" protests, an enormous article by liberal Post wunderkind Ezra Klein on how the Obama "stimulus" was too tiny, and a whole page devoted to the Bloomberg expose of the Koch brothers' shenanigans in Iran.

Steven Pearlstein wrote a column on how "Obama can learn from Wall St. protest." Michelle Singletary's column was titled "Rage, rage against Wall St." and compared the protesters to Rosa Parks fighting racism on the bus.

Politico's "Daily Digest" is an email the blog blasts out in the morning, touting the day's top stories.  As a subscriber, this NewsBuster was struck by the left-friendly lean of five out this morning's six featured stories.

To be sure, "Post-recession income falls" is not good for President Obama, reporting as it does that Americans' incomes have fallen faster during his presidency than they did even in the depths of the recession.  But every other story would surely be welcome at the White House.  Here are the stories, in the order they appear in the email: