'The DC Tea Party and Press Objectivity and Impartiality'

I'd like to share this first-hand account of the Sept. 12, 2009, March on Washington by a fellow Pennsylvanian who questions the liberal media's objectivity in covering the historic event.

The DC Tea Party and Press Objectivity and Impartiality

By Ken Schaefer

Estimates of the crowd at the DC Tea Party rally vary widely. Fox News discussed Tuesday morning that photo analyses of the eventual crowd put the estimated number of participants at 1.7 million.

A DC police officer on the scene is reported to have estimated the rally at up to three million. The policeman is reported to have said that his estimate was based in part from comparing aerial photos.

I was informed that the policeman said that if the mall and lawn are filled, they estimate one million. In this case it was reported that the mall and lawn were filled, as were all the side streets. Constitution Ave was full most of the day as people kept flowing in until 3:00 pm as traffic was backed up to Baltimore until 11:00 am."

I was also informed that ABC is said to have first reported 1.5 million around noon on Saturday, which was well before the full crowd developed. Then they reported hundreds of thousands that evening. Now many in the press seem to have picked-up on the hundreds of thousands number.

If the various photo analyses estimates by the Police, Fox News and others are in the ballpark, a range of 1 to 3 million would represent a significant newsworthy event. Such a turnout may exceed both the previous "Million-Man" march in DC and the rally for Martin Luther King's famous speech in 1963.

But sadly the "Mainstream Media" provided little in-depth coverage. Locally, our newspapers followed suit and provided little in-depth coverage. Even though five buses of people departed Lebanon for DC with people personally paying $30 per seat (and not being subsidized by some organization), our local papers seemed to ignore this participation on the part of hundreds of their readers.

More troubling was the lead editorial in Tuesday's The Patriot-News, which tried to tar "many" of the participants as right wing kooks by only describing signs "portraying President Obama as Adolph Hitler" and signs saying "the cure for Obama Communism is a new era of McCarthyism." These weren't isolated words; the editorial concluded by lamenting that "...It's a shame rally protesters were busy comparing him (Obama) to Hitler and Che Guevara."

Of course, any time you have a million or more people rallying, there will be a few extreme expressions, but the editorial made no mention of what appeared to be a great many signs (see pictures in attachment hereto) containing expressions of what reasonable people might consider to be legitimate complaints or policy differences with the Obama Administration. Also, it is traditionally acceptable to use caricatures (so long as such are not hateful) in expressing political dissent. In this regard, political cartoonists for news organizations frequently use dark images to emphasize their points of view (generally liberal).

An E-mail follow-up circulated by a local participant briefly described what appeared to be a courteous demonstration, devoid of violence, as follows in its entirety:

"It truly was an incredible event. People from all states were there and everyone was so nice and cared so much about our country.

From our area, we filled 5 buses and probably could have filled 10 if I was able to get them. What a day it was and how encouraging. To see so many dedicated to upholding the law and freedom. There were so many signs saying we should get back to the Constitution."

By: Laurel Lynn Petolicchio (Lebanon, PA)

By comparison, unlike many liberal-sponsored DC protests such as anti-war and other such activists, to my knowledge no one at the rally was arrested or was unduly confrontational.