Morning 9-12 Tea Party Rally held in Denver

Well, I never thought I’d be writing a piece on the bias in the local media. Since I haven’t watched a local newscast or a national network newscast for years, I guess I wasn’t aware of the problem. I get most of my news from the internet and (horrors!!) from Fox. Yeah, I know, right wing, terrorist hick that I am, I look for the information that actually allows me to make intelligent decisions. Go fig.

Yesterday (9-12) was the day for the Tea Parties to show this administration and the rest of the country that there’s a LOT of people that are fed up with all the waste, corruption, and outright criminal behavior that is our Federal Government, along with state and local governments. One would think that local media at least would be interested in covering an event that is taking place right under their noses, right? Ok, they actually DID cover the event(s) here in Denver, yet it’s the way they “covered” them that’s worth a review.

There were two rallies scheduled for 9-12, the first, scheduled to take place between 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM and the second from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM. I attended the morning rally, slightly chilly, an overcast day with rain threatening, however not a totally unpleasant day. I arrived at about 11:20 and there was a fairly large number of people already gathered on the Capitol lawn and a few people standing on the Lincoln St. sidewalk with various posters and signs albeit not as many as there were for the first “Tax Day Tea Party” April 15th.

Parking around the capitol is a nightmare meaning there is none. Most parking surrounding the capitol is metered but there are many pay lots in the vicinity. Although I was slightly taken aback at the seemingly low turnout, as I was looking for a parking spot I started to notice that the sidewalks in all directions were full of people with flags and signs all headed for the capitol building. As I stood watching the speakers and taking pictures, the crowd that seemed small at first began pressing closer to the speakers podium and that’s when I noticed how many more people had arrived as I looked back over them. And they were still coming. Horns were honking in support of the rallygoers on all four sides of the capitol, people shouting words of encouragement and yes, the occasional derogatory, obscene comment from, I can only guess, those who are satisfied with the “Hope and Change” that we’ve been experiencing of late.

Although I was quite near the front of the crowd, when an especially salient point was stated by one of the speakers, the ground literally shook from the response from the people. Chants of “Enough is enough” and “USA……USA” with echoes of “He lied” when speaker Jon Caldara delivered his speech noting the lies of not only Obama but other preceding presidents regarding taxation, crookery, and illicit affairs with government interns.

It was then that I realized how large the crowd had become. From Colfax to 14th St. to the Capitol steps to Lincoln St., the grounds were full of people. People that had taken their time away from football, and computers, and other things that families do on weekends to be in front of the Statehouse to exercise their First Amendment right. To dissent without fear of reprisal or injury. Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, people in wheelchairs, on crutches, Veterans, active duty military, college students, babies in strollers, schoolchildren, old, young, and every age in between.

It was………inspiring to say the least. OK….there weren’t 10,000 or 20,000 there and I have no way of knowing how many were actually there, at least until the “official” numbers come out from the blogs and the organizers since we won’t get the truth from the media.

Denver 9-12 Tea Party Evening Event

Which brings me to this point. Although they could have, and might very well have covered this early rally, the media here in Denver chose, instead, to air video of the later rally, which was considerably smaller in size due to the fact that by 7:00, the weather had taken a nasty turn, becoming somewhat colder and rain had begun to fall. I give full credit to those who attended that rally though, for their dedication to the cause.

Just my opinion once again but I think it might have been a bad idea to stage two rallies in the same day. All that did was give the media a choice as to what they would show their viewers.

Here’s what “Colorados News Leader” 9News (NBC….surprised?) chose to show:

In fairness, News4 showed a whole approximately 10 seconds of the early rally and spent the rest of the report on the later one.

KMGH Ch7 apparently heard there was going to be a rally in Denver and they did cover the one in Washington D.C.

Denvers’ Fox31, to their credit, at least gave reasonably equal time to both rallies though, they too chose to focus their “report” on the later, less attended one.

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Oh! And the Denver Post (Pest) did do a short story on both Denver rallies but apparently they had no functioning cameras as they used a stock photo of the D.C. protest.

So, do you think the Denver media is biased or did they do a great job of covering the events?

You decide.

Rides A Pale Horse.