Friday, April 17, 2009

NBC: Staged Tea Party Coverage

NBC's Washington, D.C. affiliate has kept a video of a supposed Tea Party demonstration on its website, passing it off as legitimate, for TWO days.

NewsBusters has the story from Eric the Red of Vocal Minority.

The protest is not legitimate. It's a Left-wing mock Tea Party protest, but NBC 4 and Jim Iovino do not explain that it's a staged counter-protest in the posting.

Vocal Minority: It's Staged. NBC News Washington's Tea Party Video On-Line Is a FAKE.

Eric writes:

This is a fake, people. It's staged. These are not Tea Party protesters. It's a left-wing group called either The Billionaire Boys.

What initially made me suspicious of the video was the ridiculous chants they were shouting, such like "Tax wealth, not work!" and "Lower the minimum wage!" I had just returned from a Tea Party in NJ and no one was shouting these ridiculous chants.

Eric transcribes the chants:
[Unintelligible] “community organizers!” [unintelligible] (0:15)
“We could read Saul Alinsky too!” (0:20)
“Feed the rich! Feed the rich!” (0:29)
“Lower the minimum wage! Lower the minimum wage! (0:35)
One spectator is filmed saying to another, “This is a very small protest, isn’t it?” (1:08)
“Tax work, not wealth! Tax work, not wealth!” (1:10)

Here's the video posted on NBC 4.



To uncover the fraud, Eric had help from Amy Ridenour's National Center for Policy Research site.

Eric writes:

Amy did some digging and determined the participants of the fake party was a left-wing group called Billionaires for Bush (or Billionaire Boys).

Sure enough, some time yesterday another video up was put up on YouTube featuring the Billionaire Boys shouting "Tax wealth, not work!" and "Lower the minimum wage!" Tea Party in front of the White House.

Here's the Billionaire Boys' video.




NBC is a disgrace.

The video needs to be removed or clearly labeled to be what it is -- a counter-protest.

In addition, NBC 4 needs to apologize for its inexcusably shoddy journalism and for misleading its audience.

This is a serious lapse.

_______________

UPDATE, April 19, 2009: The video is still on NBC 4's site and still being passed off as a legitimate Tea Party protest.

NBC has no sense of shame.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

MSNBC, NBC and CNBC are all under the same umbrella right?

At least the ratings seem to reflect the stupidity.

Mary said...

Yes. NBC, MSNBC, CNBC are all part of one big dysfunctional family.