☆ How SF Standard's coverage of transit tax embodies the most lame kind of media bias
Sometimes it's so obvious you can't help but laugh. The SF Standard, a large, well-funded online media outlet in that boutique suburb to the north, recently beclowned itself by employing a sad assortment of vulgar media-bias tricks in an effort to smear anti-transit tax advocates. Our Susie Murillo explores the comedy in this Opp Now exclusive.
“Meet the journalist who wants to kill S.F. Standard’s journalistic reputation.”
OK, that's not really the way I want to start out this story. Reads kinda nasty, kinda unfair, kinda--prejudicial, dontcha think?
I offer (and retract) it, however, because my For Display Only headline illustrates, I hope, the sort of howlingly bad journalism emanating from the SF Standard in their coverage of the anti-transit tax group, the Committee for Affordable Bay Area Transit (CABAT).
Let's start with The Standard’s headline: “Meet the men trying to kill the tax meant to save BART and Muni.”
Problem #1: Gender-baiting.
By only calling out the binary "men" opposing the transit tax, the Standard depersonalizes and makes invisible female members of the CABAT board.
CABAT assures me that the reporter was made aware of women's membership on the team's board, but the Standard falsely chose to represent the group as some sort of fraternity.
Problem #2: Writing a political ad, not a news story.
Even beyond their factual mistakes, check out how the Standard employs ad copywriting--as opposed to objective news writing--techniques in their headline. "Meet the men..." uses a command verb form common in ad and political copywriting (not very imaginatively, we might add), like "Vote for Joe" or "Take back SF." This is not informative, it's a demand, a thinly veiled piece of coercion.
The same pattern continues while the story unfolds, as the reporter contorts his writing to develop a disturbing profile of the anti-tax team.
Problem #3: Personalized, otherizing attacks.
The reporter uses loaded language to marginalize the anti-tax team, positioning them as old, odd, and somehow outside of the cozy lefty community of hipster Mission cafes and the Standard's editorial offices (oh, did I repeat myself?) Check out some of the characterizations: The group is "like a screech of an oncoming train." They are a "motley crew." The story even accepts, at face-value, pro-tax advocates' characterization of the anti-tax team as "in la-la land." Leaders are slyly ostracized as "A libertarian policy wonk" and "A ragtag band of fiscal hawks." The ages of the anti-tax team members are emphasized, as are the cities they live in.
Problem #4: Burying counter-narrative facts.
While the author is very interested in daylighting the personal specifics of anti-tax advocates, we learn nothing about the pro-tax supporters quoted in the story. No age. No city of residence. No professional info. This is a whopping double standard, of course, making it appear that consideration of facts that might read badly for the pro-tax team are conveniently ignored.
I suppose all these are the accepted protocols of membership in the local left-wing digital publishing club.
But still: While the funders and leaders of The Standard have every right to explore this lane for their business--if they so choose--they could do us all a favor:
Don't call it objective. Don't call it fair. And please, don't call it journalism.
Susie Murillo is an irregular (oops, did we just demonize her?) Opp Now contributor.
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