{"id":17679,"date":"2022-10-23T19:57:07","date_gmt":"2022-10-23T23:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=17679"},"modified":"2022-10-23T20:36:12","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T00:36:12","slug":"new-york-post-nyts-republicans-devil-terms-front-page-is-more-media-midterm-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/23\/new-york-post-nyts-republicans-devil-terms-front-page-is-more-media-midterm-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Post: NYT\u2019s Republicans \u2018devil terms\u2019 front page is more media midterm madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

nyt devil words front page scan<\/a>New York Post, October 23, 2022<\/h3>\n

NYT\u2019s Republicans \u2018devil terms\u2019 front page is more media midterm madness<\/a><\/h1>\n
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By James Bovard<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Just in time for Halloween and the congressional midterm elections, The New York Times wallops readers with a front-page story<\/a> about GOP \u201cdevil terms.\u201d Times reporters sifted through millions of documents to prove that Republicans \u201cused divisive words and phrases more than twice as often as Democrats in tweets.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times article, the latest in its \u201cDemocracy Challenged\u201d series, revealed that devil words are \u201cthings that are so unquestionably bad that you can\u2019t have a debate about them,\u201d according to Texas A&M University professor Jennifer Mercieca.<\/p>\n

Political rhetoric has certainly become more polarized, if not depraved, in recent years.<\/strong> But the Times piece is akin to a TV wrestling referee who ignores the wrench that his favored wrestler pulled from his trunks to whack his opponent on the head.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barely a month after Biden stunned the press corps by repeatedly asking \u201cWhere\u2019s Jackie?\u201d \u2014 awaiting the arrival of a dead congresswoman \u2014 at a White House summit, the Times touted as foul play a 2021 tweet from Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas): \u201cJoe Biden needs to take a cognitive test. Now.\u201d When did any president\u2019s mental acuity become sacrosanct?<\/p>\n

The Times did not include a specific list of \u201cdevil terms\u201d in its report, but it apparently cast a very wide net \u2014 at least for Republican rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Inflation has increased more than fivefold since President Joe Biden took office. Yet the term \u201cBidenflation\u201d is offered as an example of extremist rhetoric. The Times labels the phrase \u201cBiden border crisis\u201d a \u201cslogan of outrage and disdain.\u201d It omitted any quotations from Martha Vineyard residents on that topic. Labeling Democrats \u201cradical leftists\u201d also rates as a sin.<\/p>\n

Maybe the Times was hell-bent on using that front-page headline (\u201cTrump Backers Use \u2018Devil Terms\u2019 to Rally Voters\u201d), but the piece is thinner than Joe Biden\u2019s latest hair transplant. Was it necessary to have a journalism degree to recognize that Republican members of Congress are far more likely to link to Fox News stories? Did the Times need a team of computer analysts to realize that \u201clegislators of all stripes are more likely to use provocative language on social media and in Facebook ads\u201d than in official speeches?<\/p>\n