Few people watch Current TV so perhaps Christof Putzel, correspondent of that channel's Vanguard show, thought he could broadcast a whopper on The 99 Percent episode about the Occupy Wall Street protests without being called on it. And Putzel's grand fib (as one would politely label it) was his claim that "much of the mainstream media mocked and dismissed the Occupy Wall Street movement." Later in the show, Putzel doubled down on his whopper and flat out declared with no qualifiers that "The mainstream media paints an unflattering portrait of the Occupy Wall Street movement."
And what samples does Putzel cite for this supposed disrespect for OWS? Since he can't find any from the alphabet networks of NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS which have broadcast overwhelmingly glowing reviews of OWS, he was forced to show only clips from FOX News which sounded some discordant notes amidst the wall of general acclaim the OWS received from the MSM.
What Putzel conveniently left out of the clip showing Bill O'Reilly criticizing OWS were the counter-arguments by his FOX News colleague, Juan Williams, who was defending OWS. Here is a transcript from the O'Reilly clip Putzel used to claim bias which was actually a dialog of two different viewpoints:
Williams: First of all look at those Occupy Wall Street movement that you’re seeing right there first hand. It’s now spreading and it’s in LA, S, Pittsburgh, Boston.
O'Reilly: But you don’t think this is spontaneous do you?
Williams: Yes, I do, it's organic.
O'Reilly: Oh, they’re NOT! There’s groups behind them, professional people, these people, we sent Jesse Watters and these people just wander around…
Williams: Yea, but they’re jobless.
O'Reilly: They’re jobless because they don’t want to work! They admitted it to us. They won't work for the corporate man.
Williams: That’s not true. There is high unemployment among the young Americans because this economy is having such trouble.
O'Reilly: Let me break it to you. if you have a college degree in this country, unemployment is 4.5% OK, Juan! So all these people, take a shower and they can get a job if they went to college. That's all.
Williams: No, what you're missing is they're underemployed...
Also conveniently unmentioned is the fact that the FOX News clips (and no others) that Putzel used to "prove" MSM hostility to the OWS movement were from opinion people such as Jon Stossel who appropriately asked the OWSers, "Is capitalism bad?" which was a good question since many of the people in that movement have openly declared their support for socialism. Most absurd of all was a clip of Andy Levy from "Red Eye" joking about the OWS folks. Newsflash for Putzel: "Red Eye" is a COMEDY show. So a comedy show can't make fun of some of the weird things about OWS such as their silly twinkle finger communications or the bizarre human echo chambers?
Perhaps Putzel should check out the Media Research Center's A Tale of Two Protests: Media Cheer Wall Street Occupiers But Jeered Tea Partiers to get an accurate picture of how the MSM covered both the OWS and the Tea Partiers. Here is one of the findings on the MSM glowing coverage of the OWS:
Most astoundingly, the networks' Occupy Wall Street (OWS) stories were overwhelmingly sympathetic: Protesters and supporters of the movement dominated the soundbites, with 109 (87%) to just 8 critics (6%), with another 8 soundbites from neutral sources. Five of the eight soundbites unsympathetic to the protesters were brief clips of GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain blasting the occupiers. In addition to the 109 pro-OWS soundbites, seven times guests on the Big Three network morning shows expressed sympathy for the protestors. No guests opposed the protests.
One of the most laughable chunks of evidence of the MSM support for the OWS movement was this loving paean by NBC anchor Brian Williams at the top of his broadcast shortly after the Zuccotti Park protests began:
Good evening. We begin tonight with what has become by any measure a pretty massive protest movement. While it goes by the official name “Occupy Wall Street,” it has spread steadily and far beyond Wall Street, and it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era. The lyric from 45 years ago in the Buffalo Springfield song For What It's Worth could also describe this current movement right now. Once again, “there is something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear,” but it encompasses a lot of things: anger, frustration, disenfranchisement, income disparity, unaccountability and general upheaval and dissatisfaction. Again today, thousands took to the streets of this city. They're in the streets of other cities as well.
If Putzel wants an example of MSM hostility to a political movement, then he should check out this video of former CNN correspondent, Susan Roesgen, going on the warpath against the Tea Party.
Although Chritof Putzel is currently stuck in the broadcast wilderness of the low rated Current TV, your humble correspondent predicts a brilliant MSM future for him with one of the major networks since his disingenuous liberal bias fits right in with their ethos. However, during all that time, the Newsbusters' Eye of Sauron will remain firmly focused upon Putzel and his antics.
