Are mainstream media evil? Breitbart and 'tea party' group disagree.

The president of FreedomWorks, the group that hosted Sunday's 'tea party' rally in Washington, said the press isn't evil, as conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart says, but its role is changing.

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Reed Saxon/AP/File
Conservative online publisher Andrew Breitbart called the mainstream media 'evil' at a rally on the National Mall in Washington Sunday.

The president of the group that organized Sunday’s "tea party" rally on the National Mall says he disagrees with conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s statement at the gathering that the mainstream media is “evil.”

Speaking at the rally on the grounds of the US Capitol, Mr. Breitbart said the mainstream media are “lovely as individuals, but as an organism they’re flat-out evil.” Addressing reporters covering the event, Breitbart said, “Turn around and look at the American people, media. Look at them. These are the people you called racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamaphobe.”

At a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters on Monday, FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe was asked if he agreed with Mr. Breitbart’s charge. “Andrew is a very flamboyant showman. No, we don’t think the press is evil, otherwise we wouldn’t be here today,” he told 28 reporters gathered at a Washington hotel.

But Mr. Kibbe did go on to note that the role of the mainstream press has declined in political life, a trend he welcomed. “The more interesting point is the decentralization of information that all of us are seeing right now and this is one of the life forces of the tea party movement. We no longer need three networks or two political parties to tell us what to think or to get our information from,” he said.

"What’s happened through bloggers and through multiple online media sources," he said, "is that folks are getting information for themselves. They are reading the health care bill. They are finding out what is going on in Congress. And to me, this is a very positive driving force in American politics. You have a more educated electorate."

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