The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) pre-promoted and hosted an online chat yesterday with a local organizer for an upcoming "Tea Party" protest on April 15.
I had a discussion with the editor (which is online). I'm struggling to pin down in words exactly what I feel as wrong with this situation -- and I do feel it as incredibly wrong. My question to readers who also feel this as off: What, specifically, do you think is wrong with this situation?
More details and links after the fold:
Context
On 3/31/09 The Arizona Daily Star had a large prominently displayed post on its front page online promoting an online chat with a local "Tea Party" organizer to run at noon on 4/1/09. This promotion of the chat was prominently posted the morning of 4/1 as well.
The chat happened and is in the archives now. You have to register to read it, but registering is just an email address and password, I think. Anyway, here is the link to archived version with the content:
Live chat: the Tucson Tea Party protest movement
During the chat, I asked one question to the organizer (I'm Michelle M) and I also sent a question to the editor that was to him directly, so wasn't posted. He sent me an email with a link to a blog post he made about my question and some other things about the chat; you don't have to register to read this one:
Tea party chat draws some party poopers
In the initial blog post, the editor responded to the question that I sent during the chat, which was, in part:
"What other protests has the Star helped to publicize and organize in this prominent a manner? How are decisions made about which movements the Star will support and help with their organizing like this?"
The editor's response focused on the part of my question that suggested that the paper was supporting the organizing of this protest. While this is still a concern of mine, I decided to re-phrase the question without that part to try to understand the situation better. In the blog comments, I asked:
Are there any other local protests and movements with which the Star has used this "chat with the organizer" format with in advance of a protest?
If so, could you please post the links to archives of these other chats?
If not, why not?
Further, could you please give some information on what the decision-making process is at the Star for which movements and protests to use this online chat format with?
In response to my question, the editor posted a reply that you can read in full over on the blog post (not quoting it in full bc I don't know if I am supposed to quote a comment in full like that).
Briefly -- no other organizer has gotten such a chat in advance of an upcoming protest. And as to why this one did, the editor wrote:
The Tea Party was deemed newsworthy because it is a previously unknown cause that appears to have gained a lot of momentum suddenly (see the Google map referenced in the blog). "Tea parties" weren’t on anyone’s radar screen even three months ago. This is almost the textbook definition of news.
What's Wrong with this Picture?
So -- there is so much that doesn't seem right to me in this situation that I am weirdly overwhelmed with even trying to put it into words.
So I am posting this here both to share information that this has happened, and also to ask for other people's answers to this question:
What, specifically, do you see as wrong with this situation?