Did CNN give fair coverage of tea party protests?”
For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest what they see as bloated budgets and a pile of debt being passed on to their children. For CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word “teabagging” in a sentence. Teabagging, for those who don’t live in a frat house, refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person’s face or mouth. So when the anti-tax “tea party” protests were held Wednesday across the country, cable anchors and guests — who for weeks had all but ignored the story — covered the protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interspersed “teabagging” references with analyst David Gergen’s more staid commentary on how Republicans are still “searching for their voice.” “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging,” Cooper explained. Gergen laughed, but Cooper kept a straight face. MSNBC’s David Shuster weaved a tapestry of “Animal House”
