Media uncoverage

The Protest Warriors' un-p.c. signs at yesterday's anti-RNC demonstration "took some time for processing and often held up the protest as the far left attempted to engage all brain cells to decipher the signs and determine if we were for or against their cause," reports Frank LoPinto of The Cool Blue Blog. Once the humorless lefties realized the Warriors were having fun at their expense, they started chanting "Fascists, leave our march!" and physically assaulted Frank and his group.

"I watched the coverage. They did something called mainstreaming," U of VA professor of politics Larry Sabato told Brit Hume on "Special Report" last night, reports Rather Biased:

HUME: When I picked The New York Times this morning I read about soccer moms, and other nice people, middle class people, people like you and me who had come to express and protest their president, and express their views in a peaceful way.

SABATO: I saw a very different protest. I saw lots of obscenities, not just on the banners but also hurled at almost anybody who looked like they might have been a delegate or anybody connected to the Republican convention. And you know, I tell you Brit, I saw much worse on the other major networks. I watched the coverage . . . They were very careful to pick out a couple of Iraq War veterans, a little old lady had who attended her first convention and a married couple. A middle-class married couple who had very moderate things to say. Now that may have been 10 or 20 percent of the protesters but I can guarantee you, having watched a good part of this demonstration, that was not representative of the demonstrations.

Just the latest embarrassing example of the national press's "laziness, [anti-Bush] bias and ineptitude [that] have combined to produce a media meltdown this election year," as Glenn Reynolds writes in a must-read Tech Central Station column:

The biggest problem is that, like most monopolists, they've spent so many years enjoying their position and not worrying about quality that they're left floundering now that competition is exposing their faults. Like the folks at GM who couldn't understand why people were buying Toyotas all of a sudden back in the 1970s, today's Big Media folks are shocked to see ratings and circulation numbers falling while readership for Internet sites skyrockets. And, like the auto executives, they're even starting to mumble about the need for protection.

The free marketplace of ideas rules.

Update: Well, looky here. The Times removes its rose-colored glasses, albeit a day late and a dollar short:

Although the organized protests yesterday and Sunday have been largely peaceful, there has been a starkly different tone to smaller incidents in Midtown and elsewhere: angry encounters and planned harassment of convention delegates as they go out on the town.

When marchers approached the Garden, a police detective was knocked off his scooter. He was then repeatedly kicked and punched in the head by at least one male demonstrator, the police said.

The heavy police presence at the Garden apparently inspired the coordinated plan by anarchists and other radicals to strike out at the delegates at their hotels, breakfasts, parties, and on the streets.

Comments

[Media Whore]

Sabato is not a law prof. He teaches political science.

[Sissy Willis]

Thanks, Media Whore, for the correction. I have made change in copy. Here's bio info from the UVA Center for Politics: Larry Sabato