Thread by @bernybelvedere

This is incredibly lazy.

You don't prove that "the media" hasn't given preferential treatment to a particular figure by pointing to individual instances of negative coverage. The analysis has to take into account much more than just that.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1366044005780307973

The positive coverage the "MSM" gave him, and the negative coverage they ought to have given him but didn't, overwhelmed the bad press they did give him. The latter, the critiques they did give him, failed to meaningfully shape the Cuomo narrative-forming process.

My impression is that a fuller analysis of mainstream coverage would bear this out. It would require determining a number of things.

(1) how much negative coverage, in newspaper inches or total journalistic output, Cuomo received
(2) how prominent the negative coverage was

(3) Counterfactually, how much more negative coverage would he have received had he been on the right
(4) How have other governors of sufficiently similar states been covered, and do their track records warrant the tenor of their respective coverage

None of this is being done. Instead, it's just, "Oh, look, some negative Cuomo stories have been appearing on the Times front page. That must mean this entire time they've been so good on criticizing Cuomo."

One reason the Pro Publica bombshell on Cuomo from May of last year was so explosive was that we were all being enveloped in a kind of Cuomo Is The Leader We Wish We Had public relations campaign from the press. That's precisely why it was so eye-opening!

propublica.org/article/two-co…

The idea that the media is "in the tank" for Cuomo is an uninteresting framing. Worse, by focusing on that, it allows them to bypass more legitimate criticism about how journalists' comparative preference for Cuomo over Trump disarmed their critical faculties.

It's undeniable that the naturally antagonistic posture of right-wing media toward liberal avatars put it in a position to report on Cuomo more accurately and reliably. This is a problem more mainstream outlets shouldn't shy away from. It makes them better to recognize this!

I feel like I have to mention this every time I criticize the "MSM" because people reflexively think this must spring from a deep problem I have with them. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am one of mainstream journalism's biggest defenders.

This doesn't mean right-wing media is off the hook. The reality is that the editorial choices they've made and content they've put out have resulted in basically everyone to the left of Sean Hannity being incapable of taking them seriously.

https://twitter.com/bernybelvedere/status/1360449485923622915

They need to grapple with the uncomfortable reality that their coverage never ends up resulting in broader buy-in from the public. The way they carry themselves as news outlets, from their editing to their content, disinclines anyone other than rabid right-wingers to tune in.

I completely disagree with the characterization of the people here as "bad," but this was the feeling in the air on the center-left for an entire year. The coverage was driving these impressions. @DrewHolden360's got huge threads documenting it.

https://twitter.com/OrganizingPow3r/status/1365826090720243713?s=20