NASHVILLE — The National Tea Party Convention kicked off today with speakers taking aim at the mainstream press news media.
Media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart and Tea Party Express’ Amy Kremer dismissed reporters as contemptuous of the American people and unnecessary to their conservative cause’s success.
The comments prompted cheers from the crowd assembled at the Opryland resort hotel — the cheers quickly mixing with howls and taunts at the riser full of reporters in the back of the room.
“Bye, bye!” a man waved to the media.
“Go home!” another shouted.
Breitbart is behind BigGovernment.com, the Web site that posted the undercover ACORN videos of activist James O’Keefe.
O’Keefe, 25, and three others were arrested after some in their crew posed as telephone repairmen to gain access to Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans. Breitbart told the crowd he wasn’t involved in the caper but heard from O’Keefe shortly afterward.
O’Keefe told him, he said, that he had been denied an attorney after his arrest. Breitbart then joked O’Keefe would have been allowed to see a lawyer if he were a terrorist.
“Huh, why didn’t you just strap explosives on?” Breitbart said, referring to the events surrounding the questioning of the alleged Christmas Day airline bomber.
After the speech, one of the men arrested with O’Keefe said he too was denied a lawyer. Joseph Basel, who was attending the conference as a member of the news media, did not comment further.
In his speech, Brietbart skewed the mainstream media as uninterested in stories that don’t advance a leftist agenda. He said reporters put all news involving conservatives into two categories: “racism and Watergate.” He urged the group of small government activists to take inspiration from O’Keefe.
“I’m trying to tell you, wink, you can do it too. You have cameras! You have ingenuity” he said.
Kremer also told the crowd to use the social networking sites that allow them to communicate and share information outside mainstream media. “We don’t need them,” she said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
