The Invisible Man Who Ran for Mayor
How did bias affect the coverage of Andrew Yang’s campaign?
Anyone who wasn’t paying attention to New York City’s mayoral primary these past few months was missing the highest drama available at that moment in American politics. It had everything — scandal, intrigue — you name it. I related this to a friend of mine, who responded that a lot of people either love Andrew Yang or they hate him, citing that another billionaire trying to buy his way into politics can be a big turnoff. I told her that estimates of Yang’s net worth range from $800,000 to $4 million at the highest, and her eyes got big. “Really?!” she said. “I had no idea that he wasn’t a billionaire until you just told me that!” This is a person whom I consider not only to be intelligent, but also on my same “wavelength” the vast majority of the time.
This particular part of the narrative around Yang may be receding (and Yang has conceded the New York City mayoral race), but I believe it is illustrative of the way that misinformation can spread when the media work backwards from their conclusions rather than starting from a place of neutrality to examine a new character on the scene. Ben Smith, the media columnist for the New York Times, may have offered some insight into the particular willingness of the New York Times to use its power and influence to…
