Tea Party Serves CR Media Lumps

Sometimes, an e-mail ends up in some unintended in-boxes.

On Tuesday, Tim Pugh, a driving force behind a Cedar Rapids Tea Party protest event on July 4th,  sent an e-mail providing his personal assessment of several local media types/organizations.

It looks like it was supposed to be for Tea Party eyes only. The bad news for Pugh is that the e-mail was somehow forwarded to most of the  journalists. Now it's everywhere. I got my copy today.

Essentially, Pugh plays Santa, deciding which reporters are naughty ("liberal") and nice,  even "very nice." Most of it is fairly mild, although one reporter is dubbed a "douche," who the intended message recipient should "avoid at all cost." Another is called a liberal who "trys to hide it."

He also warns the intended recipient to  "Watch your step with the Gazette."

In all, 13 local journalists, print and broadcast, are mentioned. That list does not include me. I feel left out.

I'm not going to share the whole e-mail, because some of what's said is clearly unfair to some of the targets. But here's how the e-mail summed up Iowa Public Radio's Alex Heuer (who gave me permission to recount it):

Iowa Public Radio, kinda dorky but really nice and does follow through with links to his reports and things like that. Also will go out of his way to talk to you at events

Heuer, to his credit, shrugged it off.

"I appreciate the kind comments about me but I'd be careful, pretty insulting to some. By the way, will dorks and douches be invited to your future events?" Heuer wrote in a follow up e-mail to Pugh.

I also sent an email to Tim P asking about the e-mail, and why I wasn't included. He hasn't written back.

And to think, Tea Party backers have complained in the past that they didn't get enough media attention. They've got it now.