It's a real team effort over at Fox News.
You'd expect conservative commentators like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to be hyping today's wave of anti-tax "tea parties." But Fox personalities labeled "news" anchors are right there with their blessings too -- one telling us the protests will focus on "how much of our hard-earned money is going to the federal government," another assuring us the tea parties themselves are sparking economic activity.
The Fox promotions people have been pumping up the volume, with ads celebrating hundreds of rallies and citizens who are "demanding real economic solutions." That's in contrast, you see, to the fake solutions President Obama wants to foist on the American people.
There's something dispiriting, though not surprising, in watching the conservative movement's favorite news outlet shamelessly promote a political happening, while simultaneously claiming its coverage will be "fair and balanced."
That said, some liberal media voices seem just as intent on squelching the protesters before they've shoveled a single bag of Lipton into a single pond. At MSNBC, commentators Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews wrote off the demonstrations as the work of nothing more than crackpots or political stooges.
I've got a novel idea: How about if we wait and see what happens at these rallies? Maybe journalists can watch, report how many people are there, describe the kinds of things they say and tell us what they plan to do next.
I'm expecting you'll see a fair amount of that approach, particularly from newspapers, which have mostly presented such old-school reporting in earlier stories on protests over Obama's economic policies.
But that's probably far too stodgy for cable television outlets, which increasingly build ratings by offering their audiences the political slant they expect, and want, to hear.
Organizers set today's protests to coincide with the April 15 income tax deadline. The cable-TV-driven movement found its inspiration in, yes, a cable TV moment.
That came last month, when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli fumed on-air about government bailouts, angry that money would go to "losers" who couldn't pay their mortgages. He suggested a "tea party" protest, mimicking American patriots who tossed English tea into Boston Harbor prior to the Revolutionary War.
The idea took off, building momentum online and on talk radio.
