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Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, United Kingdom
Broadcaster, musician, song writer, tea drinker and curry lover.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Reflections on Tea Party Day


So with the benefit of hindsight, a chance to look back at yesterday's Tea Parties, a wonderful day for American democracy when hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans of all political persuasions and races made their voice heard over successive government's wasteful overspending which has now saddled our next generation of children and grandchildren with a debt of many trillions of dollars.

In every state people made it clear that enough is enough when it comes to wildly out of control spending and crippling taxation.

What was most interesting is the total polarization of the news media over the day.

Some newspapers tried to pretend the protests weren't happening by burying the story, while the largely liberal-leaning tv news channels resorted to barely concealed and clumsy attempts to make a political point rather than simply report. News Channel after News Channel was simply unable to resist snide insinuations, or in the case of hapless CNN reporter Susan Roesgen, who was on the ground in Chicago, whipping up the crowd and then having the barefaced cheek to blame them for getting annoyed at her antics.

Truth is that the much maligned Fox News were the only ones who reported what went on and had the common sense to be there. Of course the other networks (who are squarely in the pockets of the political left, and don't even bother to hide it) made the laughable claim that Fox were whipping the crowds up and indulging in self promotion, but that just came from a point of sour grapes as Fox destroyed the competition in viewing figures, just like it does each day.

I think if yesterday proved anything it was that the people are fed up with being fed up, and also that the American media is in a crisis. Somebody somewhere needs to stop the politicizing and actually do some reporting.

As an outsider who has lived here for two years now, this is all very interesting to observe, but as a media person myself, it's also very depressing. Long gone is the day when I bought a newspaper. Even the local rag is ludicrously and unashamedly biased.

As we say in the UK, today's newspaper is tomorrow's chip holder

(NB in the UK "chips" are what Americans call french fries)

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