Media Watch - Liberal Media Indeed

In the run up to Glenn Beck’s rally fiasco I, like many other dwellers of the DC Metro area, read with glee the analysis of “Good DC” and “Bad DC” as told by a geographically inclined member of the Maine Tea Baggers.

This was nothing new. For the past year, since the “liberal” media allowed the birther movement to pick up steam, the internet has provided its guests with pictures, videos and quotations showcasing the finest tea baggers in America. You know the ones – people who are quite knowledgeable about taxes, but not so good with irony…

Anyway, it was always my assumption that should a more progressive movement come about, it too would earn some media attention. (Here’s my first mistake.) I (stupidly) thought the “liberal” media was covering the tea baggers because they were doing something other people weren’t – getting organized, stating clearly what they wanted and working to make that happen.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Roughly 2 weeks ago, I had a chance run in with this website. I can’t stress how chance this was. I’m not a member of reddit (though my boyfriend certainly is) and I found the link randomly, I assume it was linked elsewhere. I joined the facebook group (I believe I was member 6,000-something) and invited roughly 200 or so people to do the same. I’ve had the rally site open at work ever since and I refresh it ALL the time.

As a former political organizer, I’m beyond impressed with this campaign. This campaign is, literally, perfect. It started with an idea – found some momentum with social media – started making asks - and then raised the stakes. In 3 days, the followers of the Colbert Rally movement have raised just shy of $200,000 for DonorsChoose.org – an organization that touts a one Mr. Stephen Colbert as a board member. Brilliant. Seriously, well played.

Throughout this time Colbert has taken notice. He and partner in crime Jon Stewart have been dangling carrots. Teasing and taunting (as of last night Colbert is slated to make a big announcement today).

At this point, my naiveté leads me to believe this movement will gain some attention. After all, these people were doing social good – donating money, A LOT of money, to teachers and students! Who doesn’t love that kind of story? But really, the attention has been nominal. A google news search of the phrase “Colbert Rally” (without quotes) gets 67 hits. The phrase “Restoring Truthiness” (again without quotes) gets more hits, BUT it’s clear not all those hits are relevant. (I clicked on quite a few that didn’t have the word “truthiness” anywhere…)

Searching 9/12 rally and requesting only posts from the last month warrants several hundred results. As you may recall, no one really even knew it happened, thus, no one really showed up. So to re-cap – an ill attended rally of people with no clear message has been covered hundreds of times while a grassroots movement that has grown exponentially in just under two weeks and raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars for American teachers and students is getting very little coverage. (A few major outlets have devoted a blog post here or there to the rally, but the rest of the coverage is mostly from small blogs, there seems to be no coverage from the major networks or their affiliates.)

It’s just like our liberal media isn’t it? They go on – giving the crazies all the air time and validating their existence, allowing them to find solace in what they perceive as normal behavior – wielding misspelled signs and shouting nonsensically about the foreign born president and how scary dark skinned people are. But, the second a person or a group comes around, trying to do something good or make something better they get ignored.

If ever I questioned whether a liberal media existed, I now know for sure that it does. Only a liberal could manage to give its opponent a free soapbox for hours, days, months and years on end without providing a counter message.

 

Comments

[Adam]

We actually got to 200,000 in 25 hours.

[Adam]

Oops, 49 hours. 200K in just over 2 days. By the way, you're on reddit (assuming you aren't the one who submitted this there) http://www.reddit.com/r/ColbertRally/comments/dev0g/political_activist_calls_restoring_truthiness/

[Lauren]

Hey Adam - Thanks for the comment. I knew it was over 2 calendar days, though not necessarily how many hours, so I chose to be safe and go with "3 days"...that said, during that time, that part of the page was having re-load issues for me. It would re-load but the numbers would be blank, so I'd have to generally guess where the counts were.

:)

[Lauren]

Oh, and no, I was not the poster.

[JohnMatt]

Even more impressive is the fact that Colbert never requested donations, and hasn't mentioned the funding drive on his show at all. Yeah, Reddit gets decent traffic, but less than 6k of the 300,000+ users have donated anything (averaging about $41 each). Imagine the possibilities if Colbert sanctioned it, considering his ~1.2 million nightly audience.