Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., must love being the beneficiary of an overprotective press. She rarely needs to defend herself.
The congresswoman certainly enjoyed its protection this weekend when the Associated Press published a ridiculous report titled, “Study: Fox News is obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
The “study,” by the way, comes from the partisan watchdog group Media Matters for America, which was founded in 2004 by Clinton loyalist David Brock for the purpose of “correcting” conservative and right-wing media.
The problem here is not merely that the AP cites the findings of an activist group. (The same AP journalist, David Bauder, has written articles based on data collected by the Media Research Center, which is an explicitly conservative watchdog.) The problem here is that the study’s thesis, that Fox is uniquely “obsessed” with Ocasio-Cortez, works only if you ignore that all of the news media are “obsessed” with her. Every good study has a control group. The one promoted by the AP does not. There is no attempt to review how the congresswoman is covered elsewhere by national media. Rather, the Media Matters report, which is based entirely on transcripts maintained by Grabien, looks only at mentions of “AOC” and “Ocasio” on Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network between Feb. 25 and April 7. From this alone, it draws the conclusion that the right-wing cable network is “obsessed.”
“The liberal watchdog Media Matters for America, which did the research,” the AP reports, noting the activist organization found that the congresswoman “was mentioned 3,181 times on Fox … during the six-week period of Feb. 25 to April 7, or just under 76 times a day. Not a day went by when she wasn’t spoken about on Fox.”
The AP is silly for amplifying this nonsensical study, which disregards that the young congresswoman is a legitimate media sensation. The attention she gets from Fox is about on par with the attention she gets from nearly every corner of the news and entertainment industries. The only difference is that Fox’s coverage is almost entirely negative, while just about every other media company treats her like she’s God’s gift to the electorate.
No, really, Ocasio-Cortez is a beloved media darling, hailed by cloying journalists, television hosts, and news pundits as the standard-bearer for a younger, more exciting, and more just Democratic Party. Listing the number of times the New York lawmaker has appeared in glossy profiles is a bit like listing the number of times Rasputin was killed; it just goes on and on and on.
The congresswoman has appeared in plush cover stories for Time magazine, the Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg Businessweek, the Nation, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone magazine. Vogue even featured her in a lavish profile that included a photo shoot with famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. MSNBC also hosted Ocasio-Cortez on March 29 for her own town hall event, allowing her an enormous amount of air time to promote her preposterous Green New Deal.
And if we want to accuse media organizations of being “obsessed” based only on the number of times they mention the congresswoman’s name over a specific period of time, as the partisan study claims of Fox, we can do that, too.
Ocasio-Cortez’s name has appeared more than 200 times in the last 60 days in op-eds and articles published by the Washington Post. Also, in the time frame specified by the Media Matters report, the congresswoman’s name has appeared in at least 90 New York Times op-eds and articles. The AP itself wrote at least a dozen articles focusing exclusively on Ocasio-Cortez’s words and actions.
Between Feb. 25 and April 7, CNN mentioned “AOC” and “Ocasio” approximately 230 times, according to Grabien. MSNBC mentioned her at least 660 times. Then there are the broadcast networks. NBC mentioned “AOC” and “Ocasio” an estimated 3,991 times in the last 40 days, according to TVEyes. Meanwhile, ABC had 1,929 mentions of the same keywords, while CBS had a smaller 1,761 mentions.
It is not just Fox that has a hankering for all things Ocasio-Cortez. This entire industry is a bit besotted with the freshman congresswoman. The thing that sets Fox apart from the rest is that it covers her critically.
