The Media and the New American Tea Party

The Media and the New American Tea Party

The Media and the New American Tea Party
Tax payers are angry with the new bailouts and the enormous budget recently passed into legislation. These angry tax payers are holding protests called Tea Parties, referring to the Boston Tea Party tax protest of 1773. This movement was sparked by Rick Santelli, a reporter for CNBC, on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange during his on-air rant about the new federal budget and bailouts. A week later was the first round of Tea Parties. This is a grassroots movement of fiscal conservatives that are against the enormous and wasteful spending by our government.   The media is trying to have a big part in this movement by either promoting it or criticizing it.  
In “Turnout tepid in U.S. for modern-era 'Tea Parties'” by Chris Parry of the Vancouver Sun, the Tea Party protests are made fun of. Parry criticizes FOX News for promoting the protests, and scoffs at the sizes of the protest. He compares the size to rallies of immigration and pro-choice which “attracted millions.” Parry continues to jab at the protests by making fun of its name; “tea bagging” is slang for a sexual act. Parry calls this a partisan movement by Republicans. He then tries to attack FOX News’ Neil Cavuto. Cavuto was caught on an open microphone with an on-location producer at the Sacramento protest, estimating the turnout at 5,000 people. Cavuto reported "They were expecting 5,000 here, it's got to be easily double, if not triple that" (Parry). However, Parry fails to write that Cavuto clarified that the estimate he was told did not include the over flow areas. Parry tries to make this movement sound weak and desperate. He blames FOX News for being bias because of their promotion of the protest on their network.
The new budget of $3.55 trillion, the largest in American history, is upsetting the tax payers (Berger). Rick Santelli inspired this movement by the explaining how the government is “promoting bad behavior” by buying up...