Thursday, Sep. 17, 2009

We didn’t throw the Tea Party overboard

By Rick Larson, Herald Managing Editor

To the fellow who called to yell nonstop for a full minute before ending with “You go to hell!” and then hanging up, I would have liked to get a word in edgewise.

It would have been: “Didn’t your parents raise you better than that?”

But to the others who called to politely discuss why the Herald did not cover Saturday’s “Tea Party” rally in Richland, thank you for being willing to discuss.

Reasonable people who discuss (a word that means a two-way exchange) usually find a situation is not black and white.

In this case, it’s true the Herald did not cover the Saturday event.

It’s not true, however, that we chose to ignore it because of supposed liberal bias.

Instead, we sent the reporter and photographer who were on duty to cover Pasco’s popular Fiery Foods Festival. We did that because we believed that event would draw many more people and we felt that would be the best use of our limited weekend staff. We also did it because the last Tea Party rally we covered (we ran a photo of this event July 18 on page B1) attracted only 25 people and we didn’t expect a large turnout.

But it also should be noted that an advance story about Saturday’s event ran in the paper on page B1 the day of the event.

We also ran a story and photo on page A8 of Sunday’s paper about the large protest rally held in Washington, D.C., which attracted anywhere from 70,000 to 2 million people, depending on whose estimate you believe.

Stories on past Tri-City Tea Party rallies also were printed on May 2 and April 26. And our front page on April 16 featured a story and photo of the first large Tri-City rally as the lead story.

Hardly proof of a liberal conspiracy by the Herald to ignore conservative voices of dissent in our community.

None of those who have called to discuss our lack of coverage of Saturday’s event were aware of these other stories.

Indeed, it appeared some were reacting to misinformation they had heard from others, either in e-mail chains or on a talk show, as they admitted they themselves had not attended the rally. Attendance estimates for the event they cited range from 300 people to 2,500 — in any event better than recent rallies, but also indicative of how a story morphs the more times it’s told.

Much is being written about the loss of civility in America today, and there are many examples of people who prefer to shout rather than to discuss.

This is hardly unique to present day, or to any political group, but the political atmosphere has indisputably become more poisonous as our country continues to reel from a divisive national campaign and the shock of a brutal recession.

Those of us in the news media are dead-center in the middle of this morass.

Many of us today seem more willing to believe the worst about others, and with prominent voices fanning the flames this isn’t likely to change soon. We at the Herald no doubt will continue to get e-mails written in all capital letters with lots of exclamation points claiming we’re part of a socialist conspiracy.

We know there are those who believe Herald top editors sit down daily to scratch off a list of stories we won’t run because of our liberal bias, rather than the fact that there are way too many stories to review them all and not enough time for us to do that.

We know some think our newsroom is populated only by raving liberals, rather than by the very diverse group of hardworking people of widely different viewpoints that I see when I look across the room.

We know some will prefer to yell at us rather than discuss, would rather assume than learn.

But we also know many others realize things are not always black and white.

Rick Larson: 582-1522; rlarson@tricityherald.com