The so called "mainstream media" has been roundly accused of bias in reporting about the Wall Street Protests. That bias is somewhat obvious in the way that the Tea Party was given attention even when a handful of people showed up to hear the latest in rabid right wing rhetoric.

Say that ten times real fast, then gently massage your twisted lips to put them back to their normal shape. 

Of course FOX News has been branded as a rabidly biased source of false reporting and outright lies. Media Matters has something to say that justifies my complete rejection of anything from that creepwork. 

But even that traditional bastion of "liberal bias", NPR, refused to cover the Wall Street occupation. A big head there named Dick Meyer gave the following excuse:

"The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective."

Alexander Higgins' Blog shows evidence of outright censorship that is keeping Wall Street Protests out of Twitter Trends. Twitter did the same level of censorship with the Troy Davis execution, where the twitterverse had to resort to the hashtag "Who is Troy Davis?".

This is why there are so many of us citizen journalists. Dick Meyer's decision points have nothing to do with our desire to know, our need to know and the benefits that we accrue from knowing.  

Perception and reality

One side will always claim that there is media bias against themselves and in favor of their enemies. The same goes for the other side. This skewed perception is especially unhelpful when the facts are needed.

Was there a deliberate attempt to censor coverage of the Wall Street and other occupation protests? Was there a deliberate attempt by the media to enable the Tea Party's rise to power? 

 This post is the result of a shallow dive into the metrics world. The metrics world is populated at the shallow web level by such giants as Google Trends, which was used to get a gross picture of who is searching for web information about the Tea Party and the Occupation protests. 

The first trick is to try different versions of the  search term. Note the following: 

Search Term "Wall Street Protests" 

There were no results for "occupation protests" or "Wall Street Occupation".

But Google Trends results for "Wall Street Protests" in 2011 shows nothing until just after the beginning of October, when the Wall Street protests commenced. Since then, there has been a steep rise to a current position of 20 points in the "search volume index". 

Search Term "Tea Party" 

 There were no trend results for "Tea Party Protests" or "Tea Party Rallies".

But "Tea Party" yielded results that showed a huge drop in interest in mid September, and only a slight rise that coincides with the commencement of the Wall Street Protests.

 But another search, this time for "Occupy Wall Street" revealed that the mainstream media does seem to ignore anything that does not involve prominent figures, disruption, large numbers of people, or an especially clear objective! The bumps and curves in this graph actually coincide with "media worthy" events that happened in October.

This terrible photograph of a Google Trends graph actually shows that the Occupy Wall Street trend peaked at 3.0, which is the same peak in interest that the Tea Party had back in early September! 

Why The Tea Party Is Mediagenic 

Unlike the Wall Street and other occupation protests, the Tea Party had several clear objectives, including:

Libel, defamation, threat, slander and destroying the nation's first African American president because of his race.

Destroying government, ending taxation, and turning America into a right wing Christian theocracy.

Pandering to corporate interests, undoing health care reform, seceding from the union, enacting unconstitutional executions and immigration reform laws, anti gay strategies, and a host of other stunningly stupid and racist extrusions.

Why The Occupation Protests are not Mediagenic 

This leads to the conclusion that the American people who engage in occupation protests and who refuse to bury a host of national ills under a few mediagenic and clear causes have been REJECTED BY THE EDITORS!

The protesters, who have striven to remain peaceful, to not incite violence, and to obey the law, have been REJECTED BY THE EDITORS!

If the protesters fail to kidnap and make Roger Moore, Justin Bieber, Beyonce and other prominent figures available to feed the media maw, they will be REJECTED BY THE EDITORS!

If the government fails to pepper spray any more helpless women or to beat up any more protesters who record acts of police brutality and unlawful conduct, then the protests will be REJECTED BY THE EDITORS!

The Unspoken Threat

While the weather will determine if the Wall Street and other occupation protests last beyond mid October, no one wants to talk about the potential for Tea Party and other extremist interests to infiltrate and to cause the "disruption" that the mainstream media is so hungry for. 

Summary and Conclusion 

Why do we need to REJECT THE EDITORS and to cover the story ourselves? We need more than "attractive nuisance" and "prominent figures" as  motivation for getting out the facts that we want to know.

No media source has the right to determine what it is that we need to know. I do not know where that self assignment as the"final arbiters" came from, but it can go now.

We must become the cellular components of a new and organic media as we develop an accurate and truthful record from the many human perspectives that will provide a rich and multidimensional record.

This unique and unprecedented sequence of events in our nation's history must be recorded by all who have the resources and by all who have the will.