Throughout the rise of the Tea Party, there seemed to be an effort by some media outlets to marginalize the message of the conservative movement by portraying rally attendees in the worst possible light – singling out protesters with Nazi or racist signs and suggesting that was indicative of what the whole movement was about.
However, the cast on Monday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC made an interesting observation — the signs being held by pro-union protesters in Madison, Wisc. have similar imagery yet they have not become the focus of those same media outlets that were critical of the Tea Party.
“Which I guess a Tea Party member would tell you if a Tea Party person held up with one of those signs with 300,000 people in the audience, it would be on a loop on every nightly news cast,” “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said.
“I think that’s a fair point,” co-host Mika Brzezinski added.
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However, journalist Carl Bernstein preferred to focus on Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for promoting what he sees as demagoguery.
“This is real demagoguery also that this governor is involved — is starting to promote,” Bernstein said. “It’s not a serious debate.”
But the consensus on the show seemed to be that there is a liberal media bias at work in this case.
“They sure as hell saw them a lot during the Tea Party protests,” Scarborough said. “You get one guy who escaped a mental institution, put up a sign and it was on the front page of the New York [Times] — seriously, why haven’t we seen those signs before now? It’s liberal media bias.”