LA Times national political reporter, Evan Halper, has a glowing report in this morning's LA Times for Michael Bloomberg, which the Times' editors loved so much they placed the report above the fold on the LA Times' front page. This article is worth parsing as a solid example of how corporate media phrasing slants news, re-enforces narratives corporate executives want to tell, and yet, the reporting is factually accurate for the most part. It is in between the sentences and what is not stated which is how one analyzes the report, exposing it for an opinion piece posing as a fact article.
First, one should note the positive spin-style language for Bloomberg, highlighting Bloomberg's legitimacy as a candidate, and how different that is from his and other corporate owned media reports that concerned the Sanders campaign. There is nothing about "low ceilings of support," as with reporting, analysis, and op-eds regarding Sanders. Halper sees nothing disappointing about only 300 people showing up at an event in a large state such as Texas, when Bloomberg has spent $50 million in advertising in Texas alone. Halper also highlights a single Latino Bloomberg supporter as if the supporter speaks for any significant constituency among Latinos, when there is no supporting polling data regarding Latinos and Bloomberg. Halper then spins away Bloomberg's $200 million spent overall in advertising (before January 10, 2020), the fact Bloomberg was a nationally known mayor for a decade in the largest city in the US (unlike Sanders in 2015, when he was unknown to African-Americans, Latinos, and half the electorate overall)--and yet, Bloomberg remains in single digits in nationally, and in various states, such as early voting Texas, CA and elsewhere. There is no questioning of Bloomberg's legitimacy of a candidate in any of it, again, unlike the way Sanders was covered for so long. Specifically, Halper provides no quotes from any political strategist, normal practice in such articles, about Bloomberg's previously held anti-gun stances, his support for big gulp or food taxes, and other positions likely to drive working class voters into Trump's arms. However, I guess it is good we have Halper's saying Bloomberg is now ahead of Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar in various polls, an implied admission that maybe Halper and others in the media have overhyped those two candidates.
Second, Halper's article allows three current or former--and controversial, corporate backed--black city mayors (see here about San Francisco mayor, London Breed; here and here for former Philly mayor, Michael Nutter; and here and here for DC Mayor Muriel Bowser) a chance to say a Bloomberg presidency would do more for minorities than other Democratic Party candidates, which is truly outrageous. Halper offers up nobody on the record saying what Bloomberg's policies towards minorities actually have been, other than a passively phrased statement about what may otherwise be claimed to be Bloomberg's objectively racist criminal justice policies sandwiched in between positive spinning. Still, one must give Halper kudos for admitting Bloomberg's foundation money has bought off the mayors, though, of course, it is not phrased that way.
Third, Halper discloses to readers that Bloomberg was able to convince the DNC to change debate rule thresholds, but not how that was done, such as Bloomberg having given $300,000 to the DNC starting in November 2019, with the obvious indication the DNC was waiting to see how Bloomberg's ad buys were going. Yet, Halper describes the rule change as something that simply happened--and how the other campaigns have been jealous. Halper writes for one of the biggest newspapers in the nation, and yet took no time to ask former candidates Julian Castro and Cory Booker, and currently running candidate, Tulsi Gabbard, what they think of this rule change, when each sought rule changes from the DNC and were summarily rebuffed.
Fourth, Halper says literally nothing in the article about Bloomberg having been a staunch Republican for most of his political career, the way we hear nonsense about Sanders' independent status as if that is relevant to actual issues. Unlike Sanders, who has regularly caucused with Dems for his entire Congressional career, Bloomberg held hard Republican positions on various economic issues, such as his statement that raising taxes on the rich is dumb. Or how he was against raising the minimum wage, and spoke not a word or concern about ending student debt. Bloomberg supported the Iraq War II. On health insurance, Bloomberg took credit for the ACA and other NY State initiatives regarding health insurance and care, while joining in the pro-corporate position against Medicare for All. Or maybe Halper could have spoken with a prominent feminist or two, in this far more properly sensitive time, and ask about these quotes from Bloomberg from a 1998 article in New York Magazine:
“If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of to Bloomingdale’s.” And another: “I know for a fact that any self-respecting woman who walks past a construction site and doesn’t get a whistle will turn around and walk past again and again until she does get one.”
But none of this has any interest for Halper, who instinctively knows BlueNoMatterWho applies to Bloomberg, but not Sanders--and who knows his bosses are deathly afraid of the Sanders' surge, so that anyone, including a billionaire former Republican, should be elevated into a horse race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
I can see a text or memorandum circulating among LA Times executives now: "Evan Halper is a young man to watch for promotion!" I am sure executives at MSNBC or CNN will be directing their subordinates to have Halper on television for commentary soon, too.
