CBS to Black Beck Rally Attendees: 'I'm Noticing that There Aren't a Lot of Minorities Here Today'

Published: 8/28/2010 8:55 PM ET

CBS and the rest of the MSM have decided the Tea Party movement is racist and hostile to non-whites, and it's a mantra they're going to illustrate whenever they see an opportunity. Reporter Nancy Cordes saw a "nearly all-white crowd" at Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, DC, as she (at least an off-camera female voice) demanded of two black women who weren't afraid to attend: "I'm noticing that there aren't a lot of minorities here today. Why do you think that is?" One of the women shot back: "They're probably over there with Al Sharpton." (MP3 audio)

In her story for Saturday's CBS Evening News, Cordes had a very specific attendee number: "According to a tally commissioned by CBS News, roughly 87,000 people gathered here at this event today, thronging both sides of the reflecting pool, stretching all the way to the World War II memorial. That's the largest gathering here on the mall since President Obama was inaugurated."

NBC anchor Lester Holt was more generous with his crowd guesstimate ("tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands") before he described the Beck rally as "steeped in patriotism, rooted in the nation's cultural divide and greeted by suspicion."

Holt opened the August 28 NBC Nightly News:

Good evening. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people from all over the country gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington today for a rally steeped in patriotism, rooted in the nation's cultural divide and greeted by suspicion. It was organized by provocative conservative talk show host Glenn Beck who was joined on stage by Sarah Palin. And if that wasn't enough to trigger reaction from activists on the left, the timing and place of the rally certainly was - the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech delivered from those same steps 47 years ago today.

Flashback to April: "White NBC Reporter Confronts Black Man at Tea Party Rally: 'Have You Ever Felt Uncomfortable?'"

Back to the CBS Evening News and Cordes, a little of what led into the exchange quoted above:

NANCY CORDES: Beck, who is a converted Mormon, likes to call himself a clown, but today he played the role of ring-master, preaching racial tolerance to the nearly all-white crowd. A change in tone from the Fox News host who notoriously called President Obama [Beck: "a racist."]

CORDES (or at least a female voice) TO TWO BLACK WOMEN: I'm noticing that there aren't a lot of minorities here today. Why do you think that is?

WOMAN: They're probably over there with Al Sharpton.

(There was no World News on ABC on Saturday night, at least in the EDT and CDT zones, because of the Little League World Series Texas v Hawaii playoff game. Hawaii won.)

- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.