Analyst: No surprise media mainstays ignore tea parties

By WND Staff

Major members of the traditional media in the United States – television networks, daily newspapers and the like – are ignoring the potentially nation-shaking story of the Tea Party protests because they attack President Barack Obama’s massive tax-and-spend policies, according to a media analyst.

“I don’t think they like a nationwide protest they perceive as attacking their guy,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute.

“Yes, the mainstream media helped Obama get elected,” he affirmed.

Gainor’s comments came in an interview with Greg Corombos of Radio America/WND.

The audio of the interview is embedded here:



Gainor said the ethics of professional journalism require that the “big news” of the day be covered.

But on Feb. 27 when 30,000 gathered for Tea Party protests the events largely were ignored.

“Now [on Wednesday] we’re looking at hundreds of thousands of people potentially,” he said.

He said the Tea Party movement itself is remarkable.

“What it shows here is that Barack Obama got elected by high-tech means … using new technology,” Gainor said. “Not even 100 days into Obama, a conservative [movement] … managed to coalesce opposition to big spending in Washington.”

He said the movement was mobilized using Twitter, talk radio and other high-tech methods.

If, or when, the media outlets fail to cover the Wednesday events, “Certainly a couple hundred thousand people are going to know very clearly why the traditional media is falling away, why people are turning to alternative media, on the Web, or talk radio,” he said.