Tea Party groups call for sponsors to drop Hardball following Chris Matthew’s ‘left-wing hit piece’ By Alex Pappas -- The Daily Caller | Published: 06/17/10 at 10:23 AM | Updated: 06/17/10 at 11:09 AM
MSNBC news anchor Chris Matthews attends the TIME 100 gala celebrating the 100 most influential people, at the Time Warner Center, Tuesday, May 4, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini) Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show "Hardball with Chris Matthews," arrives at "An Evening with NBC Universal" at Cable Show 2010 in Los Angeles, Wednesday, May 12, 2010. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
A coalition of Tea Party groups is slamming MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for his “left-wing propaganda hit piece” documentary on the Tea Party movement and is calling on sponsors to drop his show.
MSNBC aired “The Rise of the New Right,” hosted by Matthews, Wednesday night.
The National Tea Party Federation, a broad coalition of Tea Party groups that offer rapid response to attacks on the movement, condemned the documentary as “journalism at its worst” whose “purpose was to demonize and misrepresent.”
“Chris Matthews and MSNBC have just delivered one of the most dishonest pieces of propaganda posing as journalism in American broadcast and cable television history,” said National Tea Party Coalition co-founder Michael Patrick Leahy.
Activists say Matthews selectively portrayed groups and individuals in the program in a bad light. “The Tea Party movement I know looks nothing like the one portrayed on MSNBC,” said FreedomWorks grassroots director Brendan Steinhauser. “It is made up of good, hardworking, honest, smart people who love their country. It is a movement that reflects the best in America.”
TeaParty365’s David Webb said that because Matthews “is a far-left commentator” he is “not a journalist and therefore should not be held to or credited with the same standards.”
The National Tea Party Federation is calling for tea party supporters to contact the sponsors of Hardball and ask them to pull their commercials from this show, something Mark Skoda of the Memphis TEA Party is encouraging.
“Chris Matthews continued to promote the racism narrative, suggested the prospect of violent behavior by activists and promulgated the idea that the conservative movement is somehow un-American,” Skoda said. “We will encourage our coalition and Tea Party people everywhere to make their voices heard at MSNBC and to their sponsors.”
Read more: dailycaller.com/2010/06/1...-hit-piece/#ixzz0r7opBa7F
