The media gives Terry Jones and the Westboro Baptist Church their power.

[JackRiddler]

Hateful idiots like these have always existed. Sometimes they've posed real problems. They should matter if they get traction as movements, or if the law catches them doing something criminal. But both of these phenomena are tiny, sick cults with no power in the society. They should be completely irrelevant. You should have never heard of either. We shouldn't have to debate whether they have free-speech rights. (Of course they have a free-speech right to be the nasty, evil morons that they are, and to insult and disgust people in public.) Their only asset is a good sense of how to get modern media by provocation. Television rises to the bait, broadcasts them around the world. Next thing you know, some Taliban commit mayhem, and we're supposed to choose which of these fundamentalists is really the worse.

Most days they get more coverage than labor unions. Think about that.

[Curmudgeoness]

1. Absolutely true. I can't figure out why they get the attention

of the media at all, much less all that they get. Is it the fault of the people, who seem to thrive on this sort of disfunction?

[Taverner]

3. Easy! It's a two-fer!

One story about the Koran burning and one about the killings in Afg

Editors choose the stories and the quote "If it bleeds it ledes( leads)"

In the 90's news went from loss-leader to moneymaker

They know who butters their bread

[murielm99]

2. We need to have background information about them,

in case we encounter them somewhere. Finding them listed as hate groups on the Southern Poverty Law Center website is good enough for me. I don't need anything else.

A friend of ours who was in the military died a couple of years ago. The Westboro cult showed up at his funeral. The local press gave them no coverage. There were pictures of the honor guard by the motorcycle riders, and pictures of the military personnel in uniform. I saw saw one person holding a sign, standing on a corner, about a block away. The only reason I knew it was a Westboro person was because I knew that they had been there (in small numbers).

[JackRiddler]

4. Exactly. Simple factual coverage you can find if you look, no sensations, no headlines.

Something tells me Terry Jones isn't the first moron to burn a Koran for Jesus.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. I don't agree. There are so many nut cases in the world,

and I don't think that we need to hear anything about them, especially when that is precisely what they are wanting. Ignore them completely, and they will crawl back under their rocks.

[IcyPeas]

6. I'd like to add sarah palin to that list....

just make them go away

[JackRiddler]

7. yes, well there's a phenomenon given media reach out of proportion to its numbers, relative

to everyone else. The Tea Party, I mean.

[JackRiddler]

8. kick