The terms "far left" and "far right" have historically been used by social scientists to refer to communists and fascists, respectively. Stalin and Hitler epitomize the labels. But in today's polarized society, the mainstream media—which is left-of-center—is dubbing Tucker Carlson "far right." Which means he allegedly has more in common with Nazis than conservatives.
This is a bastardization of the terms.
During the French Revolution, the National Assembly organized to write a new constitution. Those who wanted the king to hold power sat to the right of the president of the assembly; those who wanted a revolution sat to the left. Hence, the terms right and left refer to traditionalists and radicals.
Today, these terms have lost their meaning. The lead story in today's New York Times is, "Fox News Ousts Carlson, A Voice Of The Far Right."
What did Carlson do to merit this invidious tag? The news story says he took "far-right positions on issues like border policy and race relations."
Carlson believes that people who break the law by crashing our border and entering the country illegally should be prosecuted. The surveys show so do most Americans. Carlson also believes that critical race theory, which teaches that every white person is a racist, is irresponsible. The surveys show most Americans agree with him. In other words, according to the New York Times, most Americans are Nazi-like creatures.
Most fair-minded observers would say that Carlson is to the right of center the way Don Lemon is to the left of center. Accordingly, if the New York Times were fair, it would brand Lemon "far left." But that is not what they called him in yesterday's newspaper: he is called a "fiery political commentator." This could also be said of Carlson, but that is not what they say about him. He is an extremist.
The New York Times is not alone in its biased reporting.
We did a study of how the media are responding to the ousters of Carlson and Lemon. We found over 200 examples of Carlson being called "far right," but only a few instances of Lemon being called "far left." PBS, NBC and MSNBC referred to Carlson as "far right" but none referred to Lemon as "far left."
No media outlet we checked was more unprofessional than the New York Times. In yesterday's paper it has a news story on Dong Yuyu, the "longtime writer and editor at a top Chinese Communist Party newspaper." If anyone merits being called "far left" it would be him. But, no, he is said to have written "liberal-leaning commentaries."
In other words, Communist Party leaders are not even "liberals," never mind "left-wingers"—and they most certainly are not "far-left wingers." They just "lean" to the liberal side.
To top things off, the New York Times issued an obituary today on Harry Belafonte; the entertainer died at age 96. In a lengthy account, the only reference to his politics was that as a noble civil rights crusader. The paper lied.
Belafonte loved Stalin. According to Ronald Radosh, who spent his academic life writing about communists, Belafonte was an "unreconstructed Stalinist." Mr. "Calypso" was very upset with whites who discriminated against blacks in the United States, yet he never had anything bad to say about Fidel Castro's oppressive communist regime. Worse, Belafonte went to the wall defending the genocidal maniac, Mengistu, in Ethiopia, the communist who instituted the "Red Terror."
None of this was reported by the New York Times. According to "the newspaper of record," Belafonte, like Dong, was a liberal, not a communist. But Tucker is akin to the Nazis. Got that?
Contact Carolyn Ryan, managing editor of the New York Times: carolyn.ryan@nytimes.com
