During Scandals, Liberal Media Always Label ‘Republicans’ and Rarely Label ‘Democrats’

by Rich Noyes,

What’s the difference between a political scandal involving a Republican and one involving a Democrat? When it comes to news coverage, reporters almost always identify the political party of a Republican caught in a scandal, but when the culprit is a Democrat, the party label is usually left out of the story.

There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but not many. To document the point, here’s how ABC, CBS and NBC have identified (or failed to identify) the figures in 16 political scandals — 8 Democrats, 8 Republicans — during the past few years:

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The trend is clear: Most of the time, the media frame their coverage to help insulate the Democrat Party from the antics of their more scandalous politicians, while Republicans caught up in similar scandals are usually identified by their party affiliation.

It’s absolutely proper for journalists to list the party ID of politicians caught up in scandal, especially when those scandals are worthy of national broadcast network news coverage. That means identifying Democrats as well as Republicans — assuming, of course, that the networks are interested in even-handed coverage of politics.

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