The media uses vague language to protect billionaires from judgment and pressures people to pursue change through polite, respectable channels. The result is that readers become spectators of inequality but never its opposition.
Short overview: Each installment features a literacy guide on a particular issue, institution, or journalistic strategy to help readers understand the ways that liberal media outlets frame the news. “Liberal,” here, is used broadly to include: (1) liberal in the original sense: commitment to free markets, free trade, private property, individual rights, and the rule of law (e.g. The Economist); (2) liberal in the U.S. sense: social tolerance, the Democratic Party, the administrative state, defending the same economic order — only with better manners (e.g. the New York Times); and (3) liberal in the plainest sense: what U.S. liberals read or listen to (e.g. NPR).
Introduction
Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a piece that almost perfectly illustrates the kind of story the liberal press loves to tell about rich people. Appropriately titled, “The Billionaire Who Wants Brooklyn to Win,” the article chronicles the good works of Clara Wu Tsai, co-owner of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) team the New York Liberty. Whether it be funding public art, the Werner Herzog film she “just believed ought to exist,” or efforts to support new mothers in Brownsville, readers come to know her tastes, passions, and even the carriage house she’s settling into. So we learn how she spends her wealth and almost nothing about where that wealth came from. There’s brief mention of her husband who serves as chairman of the tech company Alibaba, and then the story immediately goes back to focus on what initiatives she’s sponsoring and what 80-foot boat she’s renting.
The ratio tells it all. An entire article about spending the money and half a sentence about getting it. It’s a typical feature of how liberal media covers wealth. The assumption is that one’s fortune is a neutral object. And the only question worth asking is whether the one who owns the fortune is being generous, tasteful, and kind with it. Because critics might have their strong opinions about the wealthy — especially those annoying people holding signs about eating the rich — the liberal media nudges us towards a more “nuanced” position: Whatever you think about wealth in the abstract, this billionaire is one of the good ones. She’s doing her best. She’s on our side. All you have to do is read the headline. She wants Brooklyn to win. We are all, it turns out, on the same team.
Decoder
A few words to look out for…
“Genius”: Before the reader even has a chance to ask “Did he earn his wealth?” the liberal media answers: “Of course he did. He’s a genius.” It’s the classic individualist origin story. If the person is rich, he must be a genius. The wealth is presented as proof of an exceptionally brilliant mind — not proof of a spectacularly successful system of exploitation and extraction. Which makes it easier to understand why the coverage leaves out so much in terms of where wealth actually comes from. If the massive amounts of wealth can be explained by the person’s brilliance, you don’t need to spend much talking about other forces at play.
Read the liberal media coverage and you’ll get the impression that someone’s wealth comes from genius, vision, discipline, and an uncompromising commitment to taking risks. You’ll almost never get the sense that wealth might come from fortunate timing, inherited capital, other people’s labor, market dominance, resource extraction, favorable tax treatment, and government contracts — let alone a pile of stock that only grows when companies behind these stocks cut jobs, freeze wages, offshore the labor, buy back their own shares, pollute the planet, and call the cops on their striking workers. In short, if you trust the liberal media, you probably share their meritocratic idea of where wealth comes from. But if Frantz Fanon is your guide, you probably see wealth as nothing more than “the result of organised, protected robbery.”
The Economist ran a cover story this past summer that was actually quite critical of Elon Musk, at one point even calling him “plainly bigoted.” And although the article critiques Musk’s views on AI regulation and technological disruption, his brilliance is never up for debate. We’re told straight up that “Mr Musk is a genius who is nonetheless quite capable of holding views that are contradictory.” So because The Economist needs to keep believing the story that he’s a genius, it frames Musk as a man of contradictions. A poor or working-class person holding the same views is labeled as misguided, uneducated, or unable to think clearly. 0.1
A rich person, in contrast, “holds contradictions.” Because the rich person has to stay brilliant. Otherwise, we won’t have any idea how they got so rich. And what about Musk’s critics who call out these contradictions? Well, the ever-so-balanced magazine makes sure to tell us. These critics — carefully selected, of course — see the contradictions as signs that Musk is “unserious.” That’s it. So the question we’re left to wrestle with is whether Musk is a serious person. Whether or not he’s a genius has already been decided for us.
“Complex” / “Complicated”: Remember that word that protected the founders? Now it’s protecting the billionaires. Slaveholders George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are “complex.” America has a “complicated relationship with its ideals.” The country reckons with its “complicated history of race.” The liberal media operates in the exact same way when it comes to class. The McKinsey executive is “complex.” So is her billionaire racquetball partner. The relationship between workers and the ruling class, as any “serious” journalist will tell you, “has always been complicated.” Whether it’s a slaveowner or CEO of a predatory corporation, these figures are just too intricate to judge. If you do judge them — well, then you’re being simplistic. You’re not taking the time to step back. You’re not seeing every angle. You’re not being fair. You’re not seeing the whole picture. Thank goodness for a press that’s here to complicate things.
“Tough choices”: “Complex” stopped us from judging rich people. “Tough choices” stops us from judging what they do. The person we think has the power to fire thousands of employees, cut the budget, engage in weapons-grade union busting, or deny the insurance claim is recast as someone else — someone who’s facing a difficult decision. Now, liberal media outlets may not use the actual words “tough choices” in their coverage. But the idea sets up the entire tone and structure of the piece. That means we get a 2,900-word inside look at the CEO’s boardrooms deliberations, the pressures she faced, and the nights she couldn’t sleep. We learn she was faced with “no good options” and that she felt “the weight of the decision” every hour of the day. As the coverage assures us, she “listened” to all the parties who might be impacted. She “considered everything.” Yes, everything. The boss “making the tough call” is by no means the one causing the harm. She’s the victim. She was “trapped.” The market made her do it. The “realities” and circumstances simply “forced her hand.”
Assata Shakur helps us see the situation more clearly: “The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives.” The choice was made “tough” or “impossible” only because property and human lives are placed on the same scale. Which makes you wonder: If this has always been their governing calculus, then maybe these decisions aren’t that hard for them at all.
“Do you worry you’re out of touch?”: This one is simple. Look for the liberal media performing journalism by asking wealthy people to perform humility. “Are there people you’re not listening to?” “Is there more we can do to address inequality?” “Do you worry you’re out of touch?” This gives the wealthy a chance to claim they’re morally serious, and to admit there’s always more work to do. They’re on the same side as the rest of us, we’re assured. Things will improve if they listen more. If they spend a couple more hours in the office, a couple more minutes learning the janitors’ names. We, as readers, need to realize they’re doing their best to solve this hard problem. Rich people, like our economic system, are just “imperfect.”
“Neutrality”: Our old friend from the IMF and World Bank installment. It’s not a word used in the coverage. It just sets the rules of the game. The liberal media has to remain “neutral” and “objective,” which means they can’t play favorites. A journalist who views wealthy people with contempt or skepticism, the argument goes, is no journalist at all. Which, of course, is awfully convenient. After all, if your goal is neutrality, you don’t need any kind of power analysis whatsoever. And this power blindness only serves power. The “two sides” interviewed by the liberal media mostly consist of the person who set the fire and the person who got burned — all while making sure the person who got burned is the type who won’t raise their voice, call people names, or threaten anyone in power.
What the Coverage Assumes
Some brief examples of the assumptions that drive the coverage…
That attacking the wealthy is divisive.
If you want to tax billionaires, you’re being “divisive.” If you think billionaires shouldn’t exist, you’re “alienating” wealthy people — the people we actually need at the table to enact social change. This means we’re not really allowed to take these two words at face value. Eviction will divide families from their homes and a denied insurance claim will divide a patient from live-saving care. But these aren’t real divisions. The real division is calling a corporation “predatory.” Same with “alienating.” A worker gets treated as disposable or gets fired, and yet being fired or literally disposed of is not alienating. It’s only alienating when you tell a hedge fund manager to go to hell. Forcing Indigenous communities off their land? Certainly not called alienating and rarely called divisive. They actually have a better word for it: development. Refuse to leave and you know what they’ll call you.
That we should be grateful.
Spend some time studying how the liberal media covers wealthy people, and you’ll see that the rest of us are expected to show our gratitude to them — which might be another reason we’re not allowed to be so rude. Consider how much they give to charity! Nevermind that charity is essentially “rich people—and the governments they run—giving small amounts of their stolen wealth to poor people, usually to quell uprisings that people would engage in against systems that are so extractive.” Take a look at the flattering portrayal of a CEO, sports team owner, or BlackRock executive and you might start to feel grateful for how much they care about us. “Wow, it seems like this rich person knows how much I’m struggling to pay the bills. In fact, it seems like he thinks about it often, especially when he’s dining at his favorite restaurant in Lake Como.” And you have to believe these rich people are almost moved to tears when the story runs. They’re called “visionaries” in one section. “Job creators” towards the end. Which must be their favorite, because it means that before them, people simply didn’t have jobs, or arms, or legs, or the will to live. They gave us that. And we should be grateful.
The problem is polarization.
According to the coverage, the problem of wealth is not some deep systemic injustice. The problem is that we’re too divided. That we forgot how to talk to one another. That we used to know how to disagree without being disagreeable. So the prescription is to quarrel less, calm down, and “just do what our civic life actually requires: Stay in the room a little longer.” Again, no power analysis needed whatsoever. Two sides are fighting, and they both are to blame. So, apparently, the way forward is to open our minds and our living rooms to the people with their boots on our necks.
That wealthy people are on our side.
If we’re going to boil it down to a simple motto, perhaps an accurate way to describe the liberal media’s coverage of wealthy people goes like this: “You show me a capitalist, we’ll show you a genius, a hard worker, a job creator, a philanthropist always willing to give back, a person overwhelmed with impossible choices — really, if you think about it, something of a victim herself.”
For Malcolm X, it was “show me a capitalist, I’ll show you a bloodsucker.”
What the Coverage Does
How the coverage’s assumptions become yours…
It pressures people to pursue social change through respectable channels.
There’s this line from the TV series The West Wing, a show that’s a liberal darling, which could have come directly from the news desk of the Times or NPR. In the scene, a White House speechwriter admonishes other Democratic strategists for the harsh language their boss used towards the wealthy on the campaign trail. The speechwriter says he was happy to pay his “fair share” when he was a lawyer, and he’s happy to do so now. But “let’s not call them names while they’re doing it, is all I’m saying.”
There are proper ways and channels to get your voice heard, and one thing we must avoid is being rude to rich people. Whether that’s through our language, our policies, or more militant demands from social movements, the message is clear — both from liberal news outlets and shows like The West Wing — try to be polite.
Putting aside everything else that’s problematic about it, let’s briefly focus on just one implication of this call for civility and politeness. If I’m understanding this correctly, there’s a CEO who was going to make a drug affordable. Then some guy at a rally called him a jerk, and now, out of pure spite, the price doesn’t change and people are going to keep dying? Or let’s say we have a banker with her pen out, and she’s ready to forgive all the underwater mortgages on her books. And then some high school student with a yellow beanie decided to yell “social murder!” at her car. Not realizing the consequences of his actions, the student apparently caused the banker to change her mind and foreclose on all the homes?
Because if you think about it, there are only two possibilities. Either these wealthy people were never going to do anything, in which case “being nice” never made a difference either way — or they were going to do something, and then getting their feelings hurt stopped them. Which, it can be argued, makes these two executives the pettiest people who have ever lived. They would let people die or take away their homes to punish a stranger for being rude. Many of us would think this is the behavior of a monster. For coverage that’s supposed to make the rich look like good people, this probably isn’t doing them any favors.
But we’re still told to be respectful. To build bridges. To win hearts. And if, after all that, nothing changes? Well, we can take comfort in knowing that it was almost certainly something we said.
It makes communities less likely to revolt against the wealthy.
Sometimes the liberal media frames it as a wealth gap. Other times it’s a series of “tensions” between the poor and ruling class. Once in a while you may even see it framed as a class “divide.” But nobody revolts over a gap. It’s hard to speak of revolution over a mere tension or divide. Assata Shakur said, “I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty.” Revolt begins when we recognize what Assata recognized: This is war. The media coverage leaves us concerned about inequality, but not much else. It leaves the people who profit from our suffering completely safe. In short, the liberal media is very effective at keeping us worried, informed (relatively speaking), and pacified. It shapes us into excellent spectators of war, but never the ones who declare it.
The Range
The range of dissenting opinions that’s permitted by the liberal media to appear balanced — and the perspectives it excludes, dilutes, or metabolizes.
The liberal media will criticize inequality all the time. You’ll see the pictures from the rally, a review on the latest book about homelessness, and the economists who refer to the gap as “unsustainable.” Sometimes it will even run articles about protesters claiming the rich have too much money. But this inclusion of different perspectives and the range of acceptable dissent keep inequality as a problem to be managed. So the proposals center around better policy, a fairer tax code, more charity, deeper conversations, or as one guest contributor to the Times argues: “Only by teaching the evils of extreme greed can society begin to restore the healthy balance of wealth necessary for a thriving republic.” The solutions never propose an end to inequality. They’re almost always about making the arrangement a little more fair. And they seem to always involve trying to persuade wealthy people. Appealing to their conscience. Keeping them at the table. Making sure they’re part of the conversation. Working with them. It’s quite a far cry from what C.L.R. James concluded: “The rich are only defeated when running for their lives.”
Roberto Sirvent is Editor of the Black Agenda Report Book Forum. He is co-author, with Danny Haiphong, of the book, American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News—From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.
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