Serena Williams lost the tennis match.

But for the most part, unless we had been watching the game, we wouldn’t all know that.

It’s because of the video of her actions afterwards that literally everyone knows about it.

Beyonce did not win the VMA music award for her music video.

But, again, most people not watching wouldn’t have focused on that aspect, or realized the significance.

It’s because of the video of Kanye West’s actions that literally everyone sees that.

Obama lied about the coverage of illegal immigrants in the new healthcare bill.

But if nothing had happened when he said that, few if any major media would have attached any significance to that statement.

It’s because Joe Wilson was on video yelling out “You lie!” from the middle of Congress that any news coverage went to Obama’s false claim.

While generally I won’t post something contrary to another conservative associate, I feel here it’s necessary to give a counterpoint to James Kane’s article here at NextGenGOP about Joe Wilson and the GOP image problem.

I’m not going to suggest that civility is a bad idea, or that we need to all rise up and behave like Code Pink, SEIU, PETA, Acorn, or any of the other countless liberal organizations who consistently drag politics into the sewer.

What I will say is that our biggest problem in the GOP is not that we have some people who make false representations or act uncivilly at speeches. It’s not that we have a bad image, that our numbers are wrong, that we have bad ideas, or that we are somehow wrong for being conservatives. It’s that we have a media problem.

Case in point, the 9-12 march. James has it close, but the biggest error was when pinkelephantpun on twitter relayed something she heard from a FreedomWorks staffer- that ABC News was reporting 2 million people at the march. That immediately caused backlash all over the internet- media outlets from all over were going crazy about the inaccuracy.

As a work associate of Tabitha Hale, I know firsthand of the frustration she went through at being in the center of a firestorm caused from a simple misunderstanding and bad information. She later apologized for her error, but in the minds of countless liberals, she will remain the girl who cried 2 million.

But when you read in between the lines here, you see a bigger story. Nobody knew how many people were actually at the rally! That’s because few if any major news stations actually covered the event! THAT is our problem. That we can have tens if not hundreds of thousands of people arrive for an event in DC and have almost nobody notice. Many of my friends here in DC didn’t even know there was such an event until they saw the news about the false reports of numbers!

If Tabitha hadn’t reported the wrong number, there would have been considerably less splash about this event.  It’s like they say, if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, who cares? Few beyond the thousands who arrived, their immediate friends and those who wanted to come would have actually known about the event.

The same is true for the Joe Wilson story. Where, if anywhere, would the New York Times have put a counterpoint to the speech? What would have the story been- that the President made a great speech, that everyone loved it, and that he said that there would have been no coverage for abortions or illegal immigrants, and that it was an awesome plan?

Instead, they have to run a story ON the counterpoint- that the President’s remarks were so offensive that someone stood up and contradicted him for his bald faced lie. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- you can take or leave the question of civility, but Joe Wilson was completely correct. We only see this clearly now because someone stood up and said something about it.

My point- we shouldn’t be having a crisis of conscience when we’re having a crisis of coverage.

To those who say the problems in our party come from the people who actually stand for their beliefs, I have just one question- where would the coverage for any of the GOP be if nobody lied, yelled or acted up? Would there even be an image for us to worry about?

Last 5 posts by Brad Tidwell

• Voter Fraud- There's an App for That? - April 14th, 2010
• Obama and International Perception - October 20th, 2009
• The Healthcare Debate, Simplified. - October 2nd, 2009
• Win $100 for Reporting Campus Leftist Abuse! - September 30th, 2009
• The Next Generation of Conservatism is Here- CampusReform.org - September 16th, 2009