The Media on Mamdani — Quantified
The ideological framing which the mainstream media impose
Here at Political Economy Watch, we make heavy use of close textual analysis of reporting and opinion articles appearing in the mainstream press. We do so in order to understand the political framing which such articles impose on the discussion of political and economic issues.
What issues get discussed, and how? Perhaps more importantly, what issues do not get discussed? What are the assumptions that commentators and reporters work under? Which of those assumptions are explicit and which are implicit? Those that are implicit, unacknowledged we can characterize as the ideology of the media.
We (really, I) take this approach because:
I know how to do it, thanks to my training in the Political Economy program at the New School Graduate Faculty a half-century ago;
It's something that a one-person operation can bring off; and
It's cheap: an Internet connection, online subscriptions to the Washington Post and The New York Times, and we're off to the races.
Close textual analysis, however, is not the only possible way to study the ideology of the media. If I were better trained and better funded, I'd figure out a way to survey large swaths of the analog and digital media and make data-driven analyses of that ideology. I'd do what researchers Vaibhav Vijay and Waleed Shahid appear to be doing as demonstrated in this July 3 post at Waleed’s Substack: "How Broadcast Media Covered Zohran Mamdani's Win", which you should read as soon as you finish this post.
The Media on Mamdani
Vijay and Shahid's study focuses on broadcast and cablecast media; I focus on focus on "the press" in both printed and online forms, though occasionally I discuss public radio programs such as Marketplace. Vijay and Shahid have the skills and technology to conduct automated surveys; I do not. That capacity enables them to make broad, empirically grounded judgments as to the way political ideas are discussed these days. Shahid writes:
"In the week following Zohran Mamdani’s decisive victory in the 2025 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, broadcast media coverage both nationally and locally converged around a single dominant theme: Mamdani’s purported views on Israel and allegations of antisemitism. A review of more than 25,000 broadcast mentions—19,600 national and 2,730 local—reveals a media landscape more preoccupied with a single narrative than with the everyday realities facing New Yorkers.
"Nearly 60% of national broadcast mentions of Zohran Mamdani centered on Israel or antisemitism, eclipsing nearly every aspect of his actual platform. Core issues like housing affordability, public transit, childcare, and food access—the very pillars of why New York Democratic voters chose to nominate him—were pushed to the sidelines. When Mamdani’s policy agenda was acknowledged, it was often treated with skepticism or reduced to ideological branding, rather than engaged as a serious response to New Yorkers’ material needs."
They find three patterns that defined mainstream media's coverage of Mamdani's campaign and primary victory:
The Israel/antisemitism frame
Mamdani's emphasis on household affordability is dismissed as radicalism
Strategic islamophobia -- what they term "quietly marginalizing through 'otherness'"
Vijay and Shahid discuss their findings with respect to both three national cable news networks and to local media in New York City. They conclude:
"Zohran Mamdani’s primary victory underscores a familiar pattern in political media: progressive, immigrant, and Arab or Muslim candidates are often framed less by their policy agendas than by ideological controversies—especially those related to foreign policy. Although Mamdani campaigned on rent relief, transit access, childcare, and grocery affordability, coverage largely centered on Israel and antisemitism, sidelining the issues that defined both his platform and his appeal to voters."
Please give this post a careful read, then bear it in mind when you next see coverage of the New York City mayoral race on CNN, MSNBC or Fox News. And, as always, please share your thoughts in the Comments section below or by email to: politicaleconomywatch at gmail dot com.