MediaWatch: July 1994

Christian Coalition Regularly Places on the Right, NAACP Almost Never on the Left

Religious Right vs. "Civil Rights"

Political action sizzled on both sides of the ideological divide in June. Republican convention victories in Virginia, Texas, and Minnesota spurred a new look at the dedication and muscle of social conservatives. On the left, Ben Chavis, leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), convened a summit of radical black leaders that included the anti-white, anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.

But the main difference between the two unfolding stories was that reporters portrayed the social conservatives as the "religious right" or even the "far right," while the NAACP, instead of being criticized for legitimizing black racists like Farrakhan, was portrayed as not being liberal enough, of trying to shake itself out of a "moderate" cast.

CBS Evening News promos charged "Dolly Madison McKenna is a moderate Republican. But hold on: she feels like a stranger in her own party. Far-right conservatives want to stall her candidacy. So ask yourself this: can a middle-of-the-road Republican make it in today's GOP?" The June 13 story by Bob McNamara aired a Texas Republican calling religious conservatives "more dangerous than the threat of communism."

In that same newscast, reporter Jacqueline Adams portrayed the NAACP negatively -- not as extreme, but as not liberal enough. Adams said "this venerable civil rights organization seems to have lost many who seem to still need its help" and was struggling to "retain its relevance." Adams concluded that the summit was "a far cry from marching on Washington or pushing through voting rights legislation. But participants believed their summit has symbolic value...Sadly, the leaders concede that hope is perhaps the most this summit will produce."

To study the divergence in labeling, MediaWatch analysts used the Nexis data retrieval system to review every news story on the Christian Coalition and the NAACP from the start of 1991 to the end of June in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post. Reporters were 150 times more likely to label the Christian Coalition "conservative" than tag the NAACP "liberal."

In 157 of 328 stories (47.9 percent), the Christian Coalition drew a conservative label. When reporters didn't label the Christian Coalition as "conservative" or "religious right," they often referred to the group as "Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition," mentioning the Robertson link in 171 stories (52.1 percent).

By contrast, in 2,707 stories, reporters described the NAACP as liberal only 8 times (0.3 percent). Analysts reviewed 281 news stories on the separate NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (or as they abbreviate it, LDF), which was labeled liberal only once (0.35 percent).

Reporters weren't always satisfied with the term "conservative" to describe the Christian Coalition. The Washington Post used "far right" once, "hard right" once, and "religious zealots" once. The Los Angeles Times called them "right-wing extremists." The New York Times found them to be "hardliners." USA Today turned to the adjectives "zealous" and "vociferous" once each.

So did reporters classify the NAACP as "left-wing zealots"? After all, in April, Chavis invited 50 black radicals to a meeting, including rapper Sister Souljah, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Professor Leonard Jeffries, who calls whites "ice people" who are inferior to blacks, and Angela Davis, the two-time vice presidential candidate of the Communist Party USA. Chavis and Davis have led the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, a legal defense arm of the Communist Party USA, as reported by Steven Schwartz in last August's American Spectator. None of the newspapers reported that.

Reporters never used any label of extremism for the NAACP. In fact, the NAACP's liberal labels were balanced by reporters describing them as moderate or mainstream. The Washington Post identified them as "liberal" twice (counting Clarence Thomas seeking support from "more liberal NAACP members"), and cited the group's official claim they're "nonpartisan" twice. The Los Angeles Times described the NAACP as "liberal" twice, but also as "moderate" once and "mainstream" once. USA Today countered its two labels (including "largely liberal") with one "nonpartisan."

The New York Times described the NAACP only as "liberal to moderate" and among "groups that exert great influence over liberal Democrats." But in news stories on April 10 and 16, 1994, Times reporter Steven Holmes referred to "conservatives and moderates within the NAACP" as objecting to new leader Benjamin Chavis, and that the "mainstream" organization was testing its relationships with "more radical groups." Holmes did explain about Chavis: "His closest advisers are a longtime legal counsel to...Louis Farrakhan and a former official of the Marxist government in Grenada." But in June, the Times wrote that the NAACP's secret "summit" spurred "rumbles inside and outside of the traditionally moderate organization." A Times Magazine article said the NAACP "represented largely middle-class, politically moderate blacks."

Newspapers preferred the term "civil rights group." On August 8, 1991, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (which includes the NAACP) opposed Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, and the New York Times story was headlined: "Another Rights Group Says No to Thomas." Six days later, the LDF's opposition drew the Times headline: "Another Rights Group Is Opposing Judge Thomas."

But on November 13, 1992, the Times announced in a headline: "Conservatives Set to Fight on Judicial Nominees." Reporter Neil Lewis wrote that Free Congress legal specialist Thomas Jipping "would work with such groups as the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council, both with unyielding conservative social agendas." The Los Angeles Times couldn't even keep bias out of its TV listings on September 26, 1992: "Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition and Phyllis Schlafly, President of the Eagle Forum, discuss the views of the far right on Meet the Press."

In the summer of 1992, The Washington Post described the Christian Coalition when George Bush came to speak: "the group many credit, and many blame, for pushing last month's Republican National Convention dramatically to the right...According to polls, many voters have not taken well to the fiercely anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-feminist rhetoric typified by the Christian Coalition, the political arm of evangelist Pat Robertson."

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