Largest protest rocks the capitol, "Save Our State!" "Save Our Schools!"

Coverage sucks

Today's news coverage of yesterday's 15,000-strong mass protest in Springfield was pathetic. The Tribune's headline screamed, "THRONGS AT RALLY CRY: 'RAISE MY TAXES.'" If you read the online edition of the Trib, even that's story has been pulled by this afternoon. The rally, the largest ever at the capitol, never happened, it seems. My delivered Sun-Times didn't even cover the protest. The online edition? (wait...I'm checking) Nothing.

I couldn't help thinking--what if was a Tea Party ("we don't want to pay taxes for no stinking schools") rally of 500 with Tom Tancredo drawing cheers by telling the President to go back to Africa? How different the press coverage would have been, with several prime-time correspondents reporting directly from the rally and T-baggers all over the morning news shows proclaiming that they're "just plain folks" protesting big government.