Tea Parties? What Tea Parties?

Predictably, Established Media Coverage of Tea Party Protests Is Sparse
By Tom Blumer
March 8, 2009

Coverage of "tea party" protests in various cities around the country (this March 4 Pajamas Media press release, HT to FreeRepublic, cited 22 locations on February 27 and seven this weekend) has been sparse to non-existent, especially at major establishment media outlets.

Most notably, based on a seach on "tea party" (not in quotes) at its ap.org home page at about 10:00 a.m., there has been no coverage of this weekend's or last weekend's protests by the Associated Press, the self-described "essential global news network":

What's more, even though over 20 of the protests had already taken place, the AP's David Bauder, in his coverage of a dispute over the prominent use of CNBC's Rick ("Rant Hear 'Round the world") Santelli's name at a protest web site (the March 2, 8:06 p.m. item above), either did not know that the protests had occurred, or didn't care to inform his readers that they had. the rest