Weak Tea

Most news reports of Saturday's rally in Madison, Wisconsin, put the number of Gov. Scott Walker's anti-labor bill protesters at several times (one said possibly as much as 10 times) greater than tea party/Walker supporters.

Some people I know who attended the rally that day said they saw very few Walker supporters compared to pro-union demonstrators. Milwaukee public radio said a small group of anti-demonstrator demonstrators (translation: pro-Walkerites) chanting slogans was surrounded by a large circle of pro-union demonstators that was 10 people deep.

But you would never have known that from Milwaukee's newspaper on Sunday. Anyone looking at that paper would have been led to believe that it was pretty much of a draw, a stand off between evenly matched sides.

In fact, the inch-tall banner headline on Page 1 called it just that: "STANDOFF ON SQUARE". Two photographs of equal size were lined up side-by-side beneath that headline. One shows Walker supporters, the other union supporters. At first glance, the crowds look to be about the same size. But they weren't. The pro-Walker photo is a closer shot than the pro-union picture, so the people appear larger and more individual, and also so the group might look larger than it really is. Also signs obscure the back edge of the group, so it isn't possible to see how far back it goes.

The Page 1 story continues on Page 20 where a large photograph at the top depicts a line of police officers facing a group of Walker supporters holding professionally made signs. On the other side of the officers is a lone union supporter holding a handmade sign.

In a smaller photo beneath that picture is a woman standing alone and holding a handmade sign that says, "Silent Vigil for Workers' Rights."

In other words, the photos show what looks like many Walker supporters, but only two union supporters who are seen separately in different pictures.

That makes an impression, however subliminally, that Walker supporters outnumbered union supporters and that they were more well organized because of the quality of their signs. The rest of Page 20 is all text, except for a small map of Madison's Capitol Square.

The facing page is a full photo spread. No text, just pictures with captions. The two largest and another smaller one, dominate the center of the page and are unmistakably of Walker supporters. Huge signs say, "Support Walker," "Thank you God for Scott" (their incorrect punctuation, not mine), "Vote for Freedom, sponsored by: Mayville T.E.A. Party" and "I Stand with Walker and Wynn" (whoever that is). The caption says a sign holder at the edge of the smaller photo is a union supporter, but the sign is unreadable. Two small photos at the top and bottom of the page appear to be neutral, although a caption says one is of pro-union demonstrators. The only photo that can be easily and clearly identified as showing union supporters is the smallest at the very bottom of the page. 

Aside from a Page 1 subhead mentioning the "larger union crowd," little is said until the jump on Page 20 about crowd sizes or the lopsidedness of the huge pro-union crowd compared to the 1,000-to-4,000 tea party/Walkerite estimate in other news reports. In the second column near the bottom of Page 20 is a single sentence that says, "The number of protesters opposed to Walker's bill, however, outnumbered by far the groups representing tea party organizations and other groups backing the governor."

The pro-Walker picture on Page 1 includes five readable pro-Walker signs--all but one professionally made--and a billowing American flag in the background. In the pro-union photo, one and part of another sign are visible, both handmade. No flags in sight. Again, subliminal impressions.

So were there no flags among the pro-union demonstrators? Well, there sure were when I was there on Friday, all over the place, large and small, and hard to miss by anyone taking pictures or not. And contrary to the dominance of handmade pro-union signs in the photos Milwaukee editors selected to publish in their paper, most of the union-supporter signs I saw on Friday were professionally made.

The Milwaukee paper did report that pro-union rallies had been going on at the capitol all week, so perhaps its editors thought the news was that the tea party had finally shown up. But after tea partiers overflowing and disrupting town halls across the country during the 2009 summer of healthcare reform, and turning out in numbers large enough to determine many 2010 mid-term elections, it seems to me that the real news on Saturday was the pitifully weak tea party and Walker supporter turnout in Madison.

So what does any of this have to do with being truly conservative? Well, as a former newspaper journalist, I consider myself truly conservative about the news media being objective and not misrepresenting the reality of an event or going overboard in trying to "balance" something that isn't balanced at all.