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Alexandria, VA - WARNING: The following contains material that parents may find unsuitable for younger children. It contains material that is apparently wholly appropriate from alleged "journalists" on MSNBC and CNN.
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell today reacted to the biased coverage and the egregious language used by CNN and MSNBC in their "news" reports on the over 750 Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Parties. The TEA Parties were held in all fifty states by grassroots Americans concerned for the nation's future given the unprecedented prolific spending by Congress and the Obama Administration.
Rather than report the news, the networks were utterly derisive and dismissive of the TEA Parties and their participants. Worse still, both used the oral sex slang-term "tea-bagging" to disparagingly depict what ordinary Americans were said to be doing in attending them. ("Tea-bagging" in the sexual sense is inserting one's testicles into someone's mouth.)
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and her guest, liberal Air America's Ana Marie Cox, combined to use the term "teabag" at least 51 times in a 13-minute segment. At one point, Cox said there's "a lot of love in tea-bagging."
Maddow's MSNBC cohort, anchor David Shuster, also uttered the vulgar phrase and made a total of twelve separate oral-sexual puns in his April 13th attack on the event.
The next night, CNN's Anderson Cooper twice interrupted his guest, analyst David Gergen, to gleefully declare "tea-bagging" while Gergen was stating that he thought Republicans had nothing to say, and then followed Gergen's statement with the guttural "It's hard to talk when you're tea-bagging."
Brent Bozell:
"What an utterly embarrassing and crude display by MSNBC and CNN. It appears they've decided that since they can't be any more biased in their coverage, they'll ramp up the vulgarity instead.
"Now the news isn't just biased, it's R-rated. MSNBC and CNN both allow this vulgar attack-journalism to go out on their airwaves without blinking an eye and without any sign of guilt. It appears neither woeful bias nor lowly crassness on their airwaves bothers them a bit.
"MSNBC and CNN owe these decent Americans an apology for the slimy, smarmy attacks they perpetrated in 'covering' the TEA Parties. Ordinary citizens exercising their First Amendment rights in over 750 cities and towns deserve the media's coverage, not their sleaze-riddled condemnation."
Dan Gainor, MRC's Vice President of Business and Culture:
"First the major media ignored these grassroots protests. Then when they happen, they do everything they can to demean the ordinary Americans who are exercising free speech. Real journalists care about such things."
Latest Tea Party posts from the Business & Media Institute [2]; on the NewsBusters blog. [3]
To schedule an interview with MRC President Brent Bozell or another MRC spokesperson, please contact Tim Scheiderer (x. 126) or Colleen O'Boyle (x. 122) at (703) 683-5004.