“Palin Was Practically Booed Back to Wasilla” By Pro-Union Protesters in Madison, Wisconsin

“Palin Was Practically Booed Back to Wasilla” By Pro-Union Protesters in Madison, Wisconsin

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH FOR TRUTHOUT

Submitted by mark karlin on Wed, 04/20/2011 – 9:32pm.

Why do Tea Party rallies get so much media attention, even when their gatherings appear to be shrinking in size?

That is because the corporate mainstream media has a bias toward covering protests from the right, but virtually ignores progressive crowds. This was recently evidenced by the scant national coverage given to the unprecedented anti-Scott Walker protests of up to 100,000 people in the relatively small city of Madison.

So, when Sarah Palin appeared in Madison on Saturday, April 16, it was not surprising that CNN described her as “energizing” the crowd, even though she could barely be heard much beyond the “feed” mike – the boos and chants of disapproval were that loud from the protesters.

Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive (which is located in Madison) attended the Palin event and estimated that the protesters were double the size of the Koch brothers’ “Americans for Prosperity” crowd:

There were about 1,500 tea partiers, many bused in by Americans for Prosperity, the rightwing group funded by the Koch brothers.

The tea partiers were surrounded by about 3,000 or more pro-labor supporters, who let their presence be felt with raucous chants and boos and cries of “Shame, shame, shame!”

“Recall Walker,” the protesters chanted over and over again, as well as, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Scott Walker has got to go.”

In fact, Thom Hartmann points out in a television report that Andrew Breitbart (former Drudge protege and current right-wing “pundit” and provocateur) was so incensed by the chants of the protesters that he shouted, “Go to Hell!” (three times) at them from the podium. And that was before Palin even spoke.

Hartmann also trenchantly dissects how the corporate media frames its reports to give an inaccurate account of events with a slant that favors the right wing and status quo.

The true story of Sarah Palin’s appearance in Madison was that, according to Hartmann, “Palin was practically booed back to Wasilla.”

But you wouldn’t know that from watching the cable or evening news.

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