Mainstream Framing of a Mayoral Race
The Anti-Mamdani Freak-out Continues!
Last week we noted that there are at least two ways by which we can study how the media frame discussion of political-economic issues:
Close textual analysis of news and opinion pieces, particularly when appearing in "elite" publications; and
Quantitative analysis of the frequency with which issues are covered in the broadcast and digital media.
This week we turn to the same issue we covered last week: media coverage of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, pro-Palestinian Muslim who won the Democratic party's primary last month. We return to textual analysis as our mode of study.
Political Framing Via Assignment of News Articles
Ryan Cooper, who is the managing editor of the American Prospect magazine and its website, this past week published an online article entitled "What We Learned From The New York Times’ Anti-Zohran Crusade". Cooper notes that last year the Times announced that it would no longer endorse candidates in local elections -- a decision that left it poorly situated to intervene in the June mayoral primary. So instead it offered editorial "advice" to its readers about the "vexing" choices they faced, nudging them in the direction of disgraced former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani soundly defeated Cuomo, so the Times had to change course. Cooper writes:
"Last week, they ran another story (on top of their avalanche of other critical coverage) accusing him of identifying as African American and Asian on an application to Columbia. The clear implication was Mamdani was pretending to be Black to boost his chances of getting in.
"What actually happened was this: In the section of the application dealing with race and ethnicity, Mamdani—who was born in Uganda, where he spent his years as a small child, and also lived in South Africa during another part of his childhood—did check those boxes, but also wrote in 'Ugandan.'"
Cooper goes on to note that the Times's source with regard to Mamdani's college application obtained that information from a notoriously racist right-wing hacker. Cooper writes:
"The Times’ top brass knows perfectly well how to conduct a political attack: You publish every possible critical story you can think of, day after day after day, damaging the target’s reputation and creating an impression of scandal—even if it means ignoring the paper’s own guidelines about anonymous sources, which explicitly warn about considering their motivations."
When All Else Fails, Drown That Socialist in Snark
In the elite media, enforcing the limits of acceptable political discussion often falls to highly paid opinion columnists. The Washington Post has seen fit to join the anti-Mamdani bandwagon by deploying two of their heavy-hitters in this direction. Megan McArdle (also often heard on public radio's Marketplace) took issue earlier this month with Mamdani's calls for municipally run grocery stores.1 The subhead to her article claims, "History has shown that New York cannot run grocery stores better than private businesses do." Her article, however, provides no historical examples of city-run grocery stores at all.
On Friday of this past week, the Post's Kathleen Parker wrote a column entitled, "Among wealthy Manhattanites, Eric Adams wins the most-popular vote". On the one hand, Parker does manage to skewer New Yorkers of the ruling class who, frightened by the thought of a socialist in Gracie Mansion, are now organizing fundraising galas in the Hamptons in support of current mayor and Trump-darling Eric Adams. But then she turns to snarky condescension, characterizing Mamdani as a "socialist whippersnapper." Adams was elected as a Democrat but after being indicted "on federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations", cozied up to the Trump administration, won a dismissal of those charges and decided to seek re-election on a third-party ballot line. In her column, Parker edges close to an endorsement of Adams. She laments,
"It’s not easy for everyday Americans to identify with the super-wealthy or to share their concerns, but being rich in a capitalist society isn’t usually considered a disqualification from having good sense. Businesspeople who grow the economy and provide jobs (and maybe even affordable housing) aren’t wrong to support Adams."
For Once, Some Pushback to Mainstream Framing Appears
The framing of Mamdani as an inexperienced young dreamer is now widespread, but pushback is mounting. Last week the Nation magazine posted on its blog an open letter from over thirty economists endorsing Mamdani.2 These economists concluded:
"Mamdani’s economic policies form a coherent agenda that rejects austerity and embraces the City’s power to make life more affordable for New Yorkers — and paid for responsibly."
I'd like to call attention to one particularly well thought-out evaluation of Mamdani's platform: "Can Zohran Do It?", a blog post by J.W. Mason, who teaches at the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Mason poses questions in several policy areas but points out some commonalities in two of them: a rent freeze in regulated apartments, and free bus fares. He writes:
"Whether or not free buses are the ideal transit policy, they have another important virtue: like a freeze in regulated rents, they would be an unambiguous promise made good on, a directly visible gain the administration could deliver relatively quickly. Legibility, simplicity, and universality are underrated virtues in policymaking. Other transportation policies might be better on paper. But it’s unlikely they would do as much to maintain support for the administration or build momentum for further reforms."
I should note that I myself have questions about the details of some of Mamdani's proposals. For example, the proposal for municipally-run grocery stores hinges upon the existence of "food deserts" within the five boroughs. I know that neighborhoods poorly served by groceries could be found in New York City in the 1970s, but I don't know how many such areas still exist today.
Overall, however, my conviction is that if Zohran Mamdani has the big real estate guys and finance bros sh--ting in their pants, more power to him!
I'm personally acquainted with a number of these economists and even shared a dinner table with one of them last month at the Levy Institute conference at Bard College.