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Taxed Enough Already! The slogan for hundreds of rallies nationwide to mark April 15th, the Internal Revenue Service's deadline for filing 2008's income tax returns, qualified as Story of the Day. The three networks covered the protests from around the nation--NBC from Los Angeles, CBS from Chicago, ABC from New York--with NBC and CBS deciding to make the 750-or-so teaparties their lead. ABC aired an Exclusive on Good Morning America with the First and Second Mate of the Maersk Line's Alabama, recounting their pirate adventure in Mombasa. ABC chose to re-air highlights for its lead. CBS used a substitute anchor for the second straight day, this time Maggie Rodriguez.

Reporters faced a couple of delicate decisions about precise phrasing when covering the teabag parties. First, were they authentic, grassroots, populist protests or were they the product of mobilization by the networks' own rivals in the news media? NBC's Lee Cowan split the difference. He quoted organizers as insisting that they were "organic uprisings of likeminded taxpayers of both parties" and then handed off to his own network's White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd, who interpreted them as political rather than fiscal events--"anti-Obama rallies getting conservatives excited about the conservative movement again." CBS' Dean Reynolds showed us a split screen of Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto and Glenn Beck to illustrate that "a fistful of rightward leaning websites and commentators embraced the cause." On ABC, Dan Harris said the rallies were "cheered on" by Fox News Channel and talkradio.

Second, which policies did the rallies oppose and what platforms did they advocate as remedies? CBS' Reynolds portrayed them as anti-Keynesian, "a counterweight to the argument that there is no choice but to kickstart the economy with an infusion of spending." ABC' Harris, too, looked past the "taxes" in the title to identify spending as their target, "the bailouts, the stimulus plan and Barack Obama's budget." NBC's Cowan repeated the protests' literal title, Taxed Enough Already while CBS' Reynolds had the more nuanced interpretation that the protests were not against current taxes but against "tax hikes they suspect are right around the corner."

Cowan's literal take on NBC was incorrect, if David Wright's data were correct on ABC. Wright told us that because of the recession and the bear markets in real estate and in stocks, this is "a lean year for Uncle Sam." Income taxes and capital gains taxes have declined already, some $160bn lower than last year, a 14% reduction. To counter the teaparties, only NBC assigned a correspondent to cover the President's April 15th initiative. Savannah Guthrie told us of his pledge to simplify the tax code, ridding it of the "carveouts and loopholes" that make taxes so complicated to file, whatever their level.


Andrew Tyndall 4/16/09 10:36:53 pm

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