The New York Times continues to list portside in its labeling, going particularly overboard in the last several months in using “hard-line” and “hard-right” to describe conservative presidential candidates, their policy positions, and the voters those candidates are appealing to. Yet no similarly unflattering term emerged in stories about liberal presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, who take extremist positions on abortion, the minimum wage, and the evils of big banks and big business, or of their left-wing audience.
Reporter Trip Gabriel commented on Bernie Sanders’ “hard-left policies” on July 26, 2015. Since then, an analysis of political stories on nytimes.com indicates there have been absolutely zero characterizations of either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton as “hard-left,” and only one instance of Hillary Clinton being “hard-line.” Even that reference was flattering, as the Times claimed that Clinton “took a particularly hard line against Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations who she said had been complicit in the rise of the Islamic State.”
As for the GOP? A tally of New York Times print-edition news stories from July 26 through February 22 -- excluding columnists and online-only stories -- resulted in a shocking 45 “hard line” and 13 “hard right” references, sometimes multiple times in the same story, used to describe either GOP voters, the Republican presidential field in general, or an individual candidate -- often Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. A “hard-line” position on immigration was particularly noisome to the Times.
So, since the Sanders “far-left” description back in July, the Times has issued 58 “hard” labels for Republicans, and a single “hard" one for Democrats – portraying Clinton getting tough on Saudi Arabia.
Even those figures are underestimates, as only confirmed print-edition stories are included in the figures. Many of the paper’s online-only “First Draft” political dispatches had similar slanted labeling.
The paper’s urge to fit in the “hard-line” phrase sometimes resulted in klutzy writing like this from a February 21 report by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns: “Mr. Rubio was unable to derail either of his harder-line rivals.”
Lizette Alvarez and Manny Fernandez colorfully described Cruz in a December 17 profile of he and Sen. Marco Rubio: “The other, Ted Cruz, is partial to cowboy boots, oversize belt buckles, hard-right politics and the fire-and-brimstone style of the Baptist church.”
Franklin Graham, son of preacher Billy Graham, had “his own hard-right political instincts” in a February 18 story by Alan Blinder.
Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns opened a February 19 story by calling Cruz “Among the hard-line conservatives in the race.” In case you didn’t read the first sentence of the article, they repeated the phrase: “...the hard-line Mr. Cruz.” The reporters also predicted “If Mr. Cruz cannot win votes outside of the hard right here, he will most likely struggle to win larger states against Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio, even in the conservative Deep South."
Jonathan Martin described “Mr. Cruz, a go-it-alone, hard-right crusader” on January 22.
Not to be outdone, his colleague Burns claimed Donald Trump’s “most formidable rival appears to be Ted Cruz, the hard-right Texas senator who won last week’s Iowa caucuses...” on February 10.
And there were many, many generic references to Cruz’s “hard-line conservatism,” and “hard line on immigration.” Donald Trump also “broadened his anti-immigration hard line.”
The Times had a chance to be even-handed and blew it in a January 24 profile of Michael Bloomberg by Burns and Maggie Haberman: “If Republicans were to nominate Mr. Trump or Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a hard-line conservative, and Democrats chose Mr. Sanders....” Why no label for the Democrat?
