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NewsBusters Podcast: Far-Left Reporters Overuse the Term 'Far Right'
Liberal journalists subtly tell you they're liberal when they describe who in politics is "extreme." When you're a liberal, Bernie Sanders or AOC aren't extreme. He's not very far from you at all. So it's only natural that virtually every Republican is "far right" on the media's political spectrum. Bill D'Agostino discusses his latest study of how "far" the media go.
This is why any time we start counting "extreme" labels, there's a massive disparity. Our senior research analyst Bill D'Agostino has sifted through all kinds of "right" and "left" words -- and those are much more than labels -- to find that "far right" is a very common term, and "far left" is barely used, and when it's used, it's largely dismissed.
The disparity is about 1,200 to 86, but it's actually worse than that, because as Bill's video shows, they're suggesting "far left" is mistaken, or misapplied by those dastardly Republicans.
Broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC used no such labels in any of their flagship morning or evening newscasts.
PBS was 42 times more likely to deem someone or something “far right” than “far left.” The taxpayer-funded network referenced the “far left” just three times, and the “far right” 127 times.
MSNBC, which aired the most extreme labels across the board, identified some person or entity as “far right” 718 times, and as “far left” just 39 times (an 18-to-one disparity).
While CNN was the most evenhanded, their 377 labels for the “far right” still dwarfed the 44 which they applied to the far left, by a ratio of just over 8.5 to one.
Across CNN, MSNBC, and PBS combined, the GOP was deemed far right 81 times, while Democrats were called far left only once.
We've found this sort of a pattern many times. In our MediaWatch newsletter in 1991, I found a similar pattern in a labeling study of The Washington Post. They present political battles, foreign or domestic, as between ultraconservatives and nonpartisans.
When it came to new Democrat nominee for mayor of New York City, the networks could not bear to define a socialist as being a political problem for Democrats. But they can describe him as charming. The networks sounded united on Wednesday morning.
ABC’s Aaron Katersky proclaimed on Good Morning America the voters made a “surprise choice to back a young, charismatic socialist who promises to make New York City more affordable, signaling they’re ready for a break from the past.”
Reporter Rachel Scott did say Mamdani was “very far left,” but it sounded like a positive: “For progressives, this is a good sign for them. They see this as their candidate that ran on a very far left agenda that talked about affordability.”
On CBS Mornings, reporter Jericka Duncan said Mamdani was “a progressive Muslim American immigrant” with “social media savvy” who rode “a wave of anti-establishment sentiment to a shocking victory.” That’s one weasel word for an extremist: “anti-establishment.”
On NBC’s Today, reporter Emilie Ikeda defined this candidate as merely on the left side of Cuomo: “Mamdani ran to the left of Cuomo, focusing on affordability and pushing populist ideas, including free public buses, rent freezes, and city-owned grocery stores funded by higher taxes on the wealthy."
On Wednesday's PBS News Hour, co-host Amna Nawaz, a Pakistani-American Muslim, brought up the dreaded right-wingers and their ugliness: “Errol, we have also seen some pretty ugly attacks awakened in reaction to Mamdani's win." It was "Islamophobic" to suggest New York's gone downhill since Muslim terrorists committed mass murder on 9/11. They can't grasp that Mamdani is supportive of Hamas, which committed mass murder on October 7, 2023.
Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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