According to the Associated Press:

A day of demonstrations in Oakland that began as a significant step toward expanding the political and economic influence of the Occupy Wall Street movement, ended with police in riot gear arresting dozens of protesters who had marched through downtown to break into a vacant building, shattering windows, spraying graffiti and setting fires along the way.  ”We go from having a peaceful movement to now just chaos,” said protester Monique Agnew, 40.

City officials released a statement describing the spasm of unrest. “Oakland Police responded to a late night call that protesters had broken into and occupied a downtown building and set several simultaneous fires,” the statement read. “The protesters began hurling rocks, explosives, bottles, and flaming objects at responding officers. Several private and municipal buildings sustained heavy vandalism. Dozens of protesters wielding shields were surrounded and arrested.”

This is something many of us predicted a while ago; that the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has come to this was almost inevitable, given the composition of it (the protesters include anti-Semites, anarchists, nihilists, anti-capitalists, and people prone to masturbate in public and defecate on police cars.)

This is the lovely, uplifting movement that has been so warmly embraced by the president and the top leadership of his party. But I want to focus on another point.

There are many ways to measure media bias in America — but in some respects the coverage of the Tea Party Movement versus the coverage of OWS is among the most revealing of all.

Having watched coverage of both movements, it’s clear to me that the press, in the main, approached the stories from opposite ends. There was a palpable eagerness to portray the Tea Party in the most negative light possible — as a gathering of racists, simpletons, and fools. They searched and searched again for any sign, any comment, and any action that might reflect poorly on the Tea Party.  The entire frame of the story was, in almost every respect, negative. One could not help coming away from most stories on the Tea Party without the distinct feeling that the press was starting out hostile toward it, determined that readers and viewers alike come away with the impression that those who comprised the Tea Party are at best cartoonish figures and at worst bigots. There was very little effort to understand what it was really all about.

When it comes to Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, the coverage is much more inclined to be sympathetic. The press – much of it, anyway – is bending over backwards to help us understand the grievances of the OWS protesters. They are the expression of a legitimate anger in America toward Wall Street. One acquaintance of mine, who works in the academy, wrote to me earlier in the day in an effort to justify what’s happening in Oakland and elsewhere. He refused to condemn it. “It’s called desperation,” he said. “I’m not surprised you don’t get it; you aren’t desperate; you and me are a part of the 1 percent… ”

The general worldview of this professor is one many reporters share, to one degree or another; and it’s reflected in their coverage. There is a palpable resistance to show the sheer weirdness, to say nothing of the growing violence, of the OWS movement. It’s not as if those things aren’t mentioned or shown at all; it’s that the intensity of the coverage and the overall narrative is quite different than what we saw with the Tea Party. In one case, the (overwhelming) disposition was hostility; in the other case, the (overwhelming) disposition is sympathy.

Here’s a thought experiment: Assume that at one of the main Tea Party gatherings city officials released a statement describing the spasm of unrest. “Richmond Police responded to a late night call that protesters had broken into and occupied a downtown building and set several simultaneous fires,” the statement read. “The protesters began hurling rocks, explosives, bottles, and flaming objects at responding officers. Several private and municipal buildings sustained heavy vandalism. Dozens of protesters wielding shields were surrounded and arrested.”

Now imagine how the press would have covered the Tea Party violence versus how it’s covered violence by Occupy Wall Street. What we would see would make the coverage of the Herman Cain/sexual harassment story look like a minor local matter. The coverage would be wall-to-wall negative.

I assume that for many reporters, the bias is sub-conscious. If you gave them sodium pentothal, they would say that their coverage is fair, unbiased, and objective. And even if the reporters might admit to having personal biases, they would swear under oath that their biases don’t influence their coverage. After all, they would insist, they are professionals. There is an unbridgeable firewall between their personal feelings and their coverage. Or so they believe.

That belief is, for many of them, unwarranted. Indeed, in some respects what is most pernicious about the bias that exists isn’t the kind of thing we see at MSNBC, where their prejudices are undisguised and on glorious display almost around the clock. It’s the more subtle form of bias, in which ideology influences the kind of stories reporters choose to cover, the angle at which they cover them, and the impression they want viewers and readers to walk away with. Yet if one made this observation to reporters, even the best reporters, many of them would deny it and react defensively to it. And that’s a shame. The detachment they respect in others is often missing when it comes to their own profession. Quick to detect thin-skin in others, they don’t recognize it in themselves.

The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Movements have revealed different parts of America – and reminded us that the press, which is comprised of impressive individuals, is still dominated by a liberal/progressive ideology. That isn’t a crime; it’s merely a reality.