One of the ways news coverage gets slanted is the weekend effect. Politicians are well aware of it. If there’s a story or press release that could be problematic, one way to minimize its impact is to time it so it appears late Friday or over the weekend so the effects have a chance to damp down. Ditto for opinion pieces, etc.
On May 4, 2024 — a Saturday — The NY Times ran an opinion piece by Gaby Del Valle, a reporter based in Brooklyn whose work has appeared in The Intercept, Politico, The Nation and other publications. The subject:
(Full access gift article)
Here’s how it starts:
Six days after winning election to Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did what so many young progressives do while visiting the nation’s capital: She went to a rally. It was 2018, and Democratic dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump was a constant in Washington — but Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t protesting a Republican policy. She was at a sit-in at Representative Nancy Pelosi’s office organized by a group dedicated to pushing Democrats to the left on climate issues. Ms. Pelosi said she welcomed the protest, but behind closed doors, top Democrats soon became exasperated with their new colleague.
First impressions are hard to erase, and the obstinacy that made Ms. Ocasio-Cortez an instant national celebrity remains at the heart of her detractors’ most enduring critique: that she is a performer, out for herself, with a reach that exceeds her grasp.
But Democrats frustrated by her theatrics may be missing a more compelling picture. In straddling the line between outsider and insider, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is trying to achieve the one thing that might just shore up her fractured party: building a new Democratic coalition that can consistently draw a majority of American support.
emphasis added
It’s not just Democrats who may be missing the real story. How often do you see references to AOC that dismiss her as the Left equivalent of the MAGA extremists? The false equivalence is strong in the media, and straightforward legislating isn’t all that newsworthy. AOC is doing something that deserves more attention.
...Since 2016, there have been two competing visions for the Democratic Party. One is the promise that began with Barack Obama of a multiracial coalition that would grow stronger as America’s demographics shifted; the other is the political revolution championed by Bernie Sanders as a way to unite nonvoters with the working class. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez bridges the gap between the two. The dream for Democrats is that one day, she or someone like her could emerge from the backbench to bring new voters into the party, forging a coalition that can win election after election. It’s too early to tell whether she has what it takes to pull that off. But what’s clear is that at a time when Democrats are struggling, she is quietly laying the groundwork to build a coalition broader than the one she came to power with, unafraid to take risks along the way.
That the paper of record chose to run this on the weekend instead of Monday and the start of the news cycle suggests the possibility that this approach makes the powers that be at the Gray Lady unsettled. Del Valle has a summary of what the ‘bipartisanship’ so beloved by establishment media too often comes down to: “For decades, bipartisanship has meant bringing together moderates, lobbyists and establishment insiders to produce watered-down legislation unpalatable to many voters in both political parties.”
Consider the media’s cognitive dissonance inherent in dismissing popular things that as majority of voters want as ‘fringe’, and you can begin to see the problem with the way the press frames news coverage. AOC is going a different route.
Read the whole thing. There’s much food for thought here.