CNBC Working With Tea Baggers on Healthcare Protest Coverage

Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:08 pm

Here is a story that you won’t be seeing on MSNBC. According to Media Matters, CNBC sent an email to a national Tea Party coordinator looking for a mob to cover at a healthcare protest. They were looking for a location with, “lots of energy and lots of anger.” Low and behold, CNBC may be trying gin up anti-healthcare reform coverage.

You can view a post from the Tea Party Patriots website on the Media Matters blog, from Jenny Beth Martin that says, “We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is from CNBC. So where are the big events this week and where can TPP be best represented in the news?”

This is more evidence not only of the overt political agenda of CNBC, but it also dispels the idea that these protests are somehow organic movements of regular people who are showing up because they are opposed to healthcare reform. This is proof of the level of coordination and organization that is involved in this movement.

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It isn’t much of a surprise that the tea baggers are also showing up to protest at the town hall meetings. The tactics being used are the same for both the tea parties and these healthcare protests. The Nazi signs, the yelling, the disruption, it is all the same thing. Quite frankly, the issues don’t matter to these people. They want “their country back” that the black man stole from them.

It also isn’t a shock that CNBC is involved in spinning the coverage. As the Media Matters blog asked, is CNBC also contacting Democrats and progressives for their town hall coverage? It is a pretty safe bet that they aren’t. Of course, this story won’t be covered on MSNBC or NBC, because as we saw with Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart incident, the NBC family covers for each other.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association