Special report: How the media smears the tea-party movement

Opening Saturday’s Good Morning America the morning of the event, co-host Bill Weir painted the Tea Partiers as driven by rage: “This morning, outrage. Protesters descend on Washington to rally against the President’s health care plan. As civility gives way to shouting, what’s fueling all this anger?” On that night’s CBS Evening News, reporter Nancy Cordes also touted the supposed radicalism of the crowd: “Homemade signs accused Mr. Obama of socialism, communism and worse.”

Back on ABC’s Good Morning America the next day, reporter Yunji de Nies highlighted one marcher who claimed “every Democratic politician is working for the mafia,” and she directly confronted a second man: “Do you really believe the President is a communist?”

On CBS’s Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer framed it this way: “An angry nation, a nasty debate….Tens of thousands of conservatives marched in Washington yesterday, protesting what they call socialism in the President’s health care plan. How indicative is their demonstration of the national mood?”