DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

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For a fail-safe indicator of media bias, it’s hard to beat labels. The little words the reporters stick in to describe institutions often turn out to tell more about the bias of the reporters and news organizations than about the institutions to which they are being applied.

A good recent example — a good example, but bad journalism — of this phenomenon comes in a news article by Patricia Cohen that appears in the business section of the New York Times under the headline “What Trump and the G.O.P. Can Agree On: Tax Cuts for the Rich.”

Ms. Cohen mentions three research organizations or think tanks in her article. One, the Tax Policy Center, is a joint venture of two center-left organizations, the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. Ms. Cohen refers to it as “the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington.”

Two others, the Tax Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, are also nonpartisan, but they are on the center-right of the ideological spectrum. Ms. Cohen refers to them as “the conservative American Enterprise Institute” and “The conservative Tax Foundation.”

Got that? The Times describes the center-left think tank as “nonpartisan,” but it describes the center to center-right think tanks as “conservative.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2016 at 05:14 and is filed under Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.