I couldn’t make it down there myself, but I’m told a healthy media contingent showed up to watch the protesters drop off petitions at the Attorney General’s office, presumably on the off chance that there might be a little drama.
I’d say that was well played on my part, but, you know, one can only go to that particular well so many times.
When several thousand health care reform backers packed into Westlake Park last September the rally earned relatively little media coverage and absolutely zero ink in the Seattle Times. Yet when maybe a hundred or so Teabaggers gathered on a street corner to mark the anniversary of their so-called “movement,” the Times deemed that worthy of a reporter, a photographer and twenty column inches.
Why? Media bias, of course, though not necessarily of the kind you might think.
Yeah, sure, our media’s corporate owners are biased toward the right-wing agenda and away from ours, but outside of, say, Fox News and handful of other ridiculously partisan media outlets, that only explains a small part of the disproportionate coverage the Teabaggers have enjoyed. No, what the media is really institutionally biased toward is a good story. And the angry, crazy, froth-at-mouth Teabaggers are nothing if not a good story.
Peacefully dropping off a bunch of petitions on the other hand, not so much… not at least unless you’re Tim Eyman prancing about in a rented costume, and spouting off his usual anti-tax/anti-government sound bites. But up the ante a little — provoke the AG’s office into ordering a lockdown, for example — and voila… three TV cameras show up. You know, just in case.
Am I proud that it took turning up the angry rhetoric a couple notches to spark some attention? Not particularly, but neither am I ashamed. I’ve been at this too long not to know how this game is played.
In my emails today with AG communications director Janelle Guthrie, she wrote: “It doesn’t have to be as ugly and contentious as you seem to like to make it. Reasonable people can have reasonable discussions.”
Yeah, well, reasonable people can have reasonable discussions, but apparently, if you want the media to pay attention, it does unfortunately have to be a little ugly and contentious. After all, my long time readers know that at my core, I’m a policy wonk who often digresses into lengthy, technical policy discussions, only to be completely ignored by the legacy press. But break a bit of dirty muckraking — or vaguely threaten to vaguely threaten a public disturbance — and that catches the media’s attention.
I’m a smart critic, an entertaining writer and a damn fine analyst with long track record of getting stuff right, but honestly, I know what my main role is: publicly saying the things respectable folk wish they could publicly say, if they weren’t so cautious and polite. That’s why folks read me, because I’m willing to call a spade a fuckin’ spade. And there’s something naturally cathartic in that.
But like I said, one can only go to that particular well so many times before it runs dry, and if I’m the only person around here expressing any real emotion, the media will continue to largely ignore our side of the story while heaping outsized coverage on the handful of loud, angry wingnuts across the street.
And for those in the media who take issue with my assessment of what it takes to manipulate you, well, actions speak louder than words. (Or at least, actions would speak louder than words, if only there was anybody around to report on them.)
Not when you turn reasonable people into bogey men and lock them out of the building, sweetie.
The horses asses on the right go to that well every fucking day, Goldy.
Perhaps the Pussy General should have actually addressed the crowd’s issues instead of turning tail and running east of the mountains. Most of those in attendance voted for him, afterall.
He’s being played by his own party. These idiot, rat-bastard republicans, cannot see how the public is going to turn against an AG who is opposing consumer protection which this bill has the language to enact.
“I’m told a healthy media contingent showed up to watch the protesters drop off petitions at the Attorney General’s office”
You wouldn’t know it even happened from reading the Times website.
KOMO seemed cynical in McKenna’s absence from his office.
Thanks Goldy! You are my favorite blog! Keep up the great work!
goldy wrote:
“that’s why folks read me, because I’m willing to call a spade a fuckin’ spade.”
gee that racist talk is so sexy goly.
valleyrat @7,
“call a spade a spade” is no more racist than using the word “niggardly.” Now if you want to bask in your illiteracy, that’s up to you, but don’t ask us to lower ourselves to your standard.
Re 8
Ah yes. Goldy showing his usual tact and taste in welcoming a new reader to his blog.
@9
He’s just calling a spade a spade…
lost,
You told us you were “going to your cabin” that has not internet access and, so, would not be with us for a few days. You lied. Once again.
Goldy,
I’m still not sure what I think of your call to action yesterday. I still want to reason with people, and maybe that is a weakness. I’m arrogant enough to think that we on the left are simply smarter than those on the right and that we will win out through the sheer force of Reason, but then I see how the right still stays in the game. Scoring points, even. That is frustrating. I know that the left is where the world is going, and that the contemporary right in this nation is holding everybody back. So, I must give them credit. Certainly, the right’s dominance of the media is part of the equation. I mean, how in the hell in one of the most liberal cities in the nation can we have a newspaper that channels Pat Robertson? Yet, the right continually bleats about the liberal media, and, somehow, most Americans believe the media is liberal. Here, in Seattle, we have one newspaper, and it is rightwing as hell. The rightwing will, nonetheless, claim the local media is leftist. Maybe the in-your-face tactic you proposed yesterday is correct. Maybe we on the left need to ascribe to the impolite, fuck-you, screaming tactics of the right. I hate to have to do that.
I don’t think we need to or should become like the screaming idiots of the right. What Goldy did was raise the specter of a good fight and had media hoards show up for 50, calm, polite, folks. It showed the medias bias toward dramatics and away from news. Does anyone think media hoards would have shown up for 50 folks having a calm, polite, policy based, discussion?
@11
With your approval, water problems at a rental called me home. Back again in the morning though.
Is that alright?
13
Oh, I guess.
@11
The problem is at heart you’re a reasonable and politically motivated person.
I know that the left without the right would drive the country over a cliff one direction.
I also know that the right without the left would drive it into a brick wall the other.
No system of thought is perfect. Someone here called it ‘loyal opposition,’ but that opposition is necessary to find the middle ground the non-political middle of America can stomach. This means acrimony, sometimes, from the partisans of either end of the political spectrum. Good thing most of them enjoy it, I guess.
“But up the ante a little — provoke the AG’s office into ordering a lockdown, for example — and voila… three TV cameras show up. You know, just in case.”
It’s been said that people who go to the circus hope the acrobat won’t fall off the high wire, but want to be there if he does.
http://www.highonadventure.com.....llenda.jpg
well played goldy, very well played.
lost,
I fully agree that politically there needs to be a loyal opposition. It is much like a marriage. I know I’m right, always, then my wife weighs in, and I’m not quite as sure of myself, though I think I’m still right.
Occasionally, you sound reasonable, then you weigh in with the nonsense comparable to Puddy or Cynical. I do believe that the hyperpartisanship in this country that we are currently seeing is not healthy. I blame the right (Fox News, et al.) more than the left. The Republicans fucked up big time on this healthcare bill. They should have participated. Read David Frum. Aside from blaming, however, I think people need to talk. We are, after all, Americans, all of us, and the horseshit that we are currently enduring is a bit much.