Local Fox Reporter Threatened with Stabbing, Still Breathlessly Defends Occupy Movement

Here are some headlines you may have seen in the past few years:

The list goes on and on. Message received: The Tea Party is violent.

Meanwhile, there is a movement of vagrants and vagabonds who have taken to the streets in what some have deemed a “counter-Tea Party” movement known as Occupy Wall Street. And while I applaud their exercise of free speech, it’s hard to ignore how the media treats elements of violence in their ranks versus the Tea Party.

For instance, when a Fox 5 reporter was told by an Occupier that he was going to stab in him in the throat, the media was quick to jump to the movement’s defense:

This person is not representative of the overhaul…the over…the overall group here.

[…]

The folks in there, they’ve been gracious, they’ve been accommodating, um, they’ve answered all our questions. I think not only myself but some of the other … the other reporters. So again, I don’t think this person represents the whole but it’s part of an element that uh, that officials, NYPD officials and city officials have been concerned about. Some people, coming here for the accommodations, to sleep here for free food and that kind of thing.

I know if I were the victim of a threat and ran into such indifference from the group’s organizers, I’d be pretty annoyed if that was the response from the media. Those quotes seem to show an unwillingness to even consider whether or not there is a larger issue pervading the protests. But so ingrained is the thought process that those quotes actually come from the victim himself, John Huddy, who seemed to spend more time discussing the merits and good nature of the people that comprised Occupy Wall Street, while trying to make as clear as possible to the viewers at home that the death threat was in no way reflective of the movement at large.

Again, this is very unlike the attitude towards the historically peaceful and police-friendly (not to mention clean) Tea Parties that took place over 2 years with very few incidents of this type. What Occupy Wall Street is receiving is known as “the benefit of the doubt.” A courtesy that was long denied, and is still denied, to the Tea Party Movement.

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