Is the press biased in favor of Occupy Wall Street?

According to Big Journalism, the Occupy Wall Street movement has received some messaging help from journalists who work at MSNBC and Rolling Stone.

(Image credit: Ramin Talaie/Corbis)

last updated 8 January 2015

The conservative website Big Journalism was tipped off to an Occupy Wall Street planning listserv that has been leaked online — and purportedly shows the protest movement's collaboration with "well-known media members." Big Journalism's Dana Loesch says the list of people helping to shape Occupy Wall Street's message includes a "veritable who's who in media." But so far, she's only released supportive emails from MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan and Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, while mentioning the "unclear" involvement of Bill Moyers, Salon's Glenn Greenwald, and Noam Chomsky. Is this really a smoking gun proving that the mainstream press is secretly helping the Left?

The liberal media just got busted: The news that the media is "working actively with Occupy activists... should surprise exactly no one," says Thomas Lifton at American Thinker. But it's always nice to have new "documentary proof that media figures conspire with the Left," since "fair-minded members of the public" still sometimes need convincing that "the mainstream media are corrupt and not to be trusted." I can't wait to read what else this trove contains.

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For gotcha journalism, this is weak tea: If the most damning examples Loesch can find are from "activist journalists" like Ratigan and Taibbi — who already openly support Occupy Wall Street — then count me unimpressed, says David Weigel at Slate. These populist journalists are "actually a lot like... well, like Loesch," a Tea Party activist who uses her media megaphone to push an ideological take on a story. As she should know, "this sort of cross-pollination was pivotal to the rise of the Tea Party."

And this non-scandal can't stop Occupy Wall Street: Give me a break, says Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone. These were mostly just private emails between myself and fellow financial journalists and activists, none of whom are OWS organizers. I published my near identical, unheeded advice for OWS in Rolling Stone. This "absurd" Big Journalism exposé is part of the larger plot by both the Left and Right to "herd everybody back into the same Left-Right cage matches," where OWS can either be co-opted or dismissed. But the movement is too big and broad for that.