Much like a person’s worldview frames how they view life, framing is the perspective a reporter uses to give context to a story. One example is the “Republicans pounce” angle: When a Democrat does something stupid, illegal, or dumb, the media reports on how Republicans are reacting to it.
A more recent example came last week, when a reporter asked Democrat Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to explain why Republicans seem to hate black people so much.
“Yesterday, Cori Bush introduced a bill calling for $14 trillion in reparations for black Americans," a reporter began. "However, critics are concerned that the bill won't pass due to GOP opposition. So, my question to you is why do you think so many people on the right opposed the call for reparations?”
That question, of course, set up the black Democrat to criticize Republicans as racists while making Democrats look compassionate. “We wanna uplift everyone,” he replied, “and of course make see we deal with injustice…”
The point of the question and the answer, says Sandy Rios of American Family Radio, was to suggest you are racist is you oppose reparations.
“Now, if you're a black person who opposes reparations, then you, too, are a racist,” she adds, “but more likely your comments or opinions are just not reported.”
So does Rep. Jeffries support or oppose a $14 trillion reparations bill? Nobody learned that answer. In his reply, the politician said he hasn’t read the bill so he couldn’t comment on its “merits,” which allowed him to avoid criticizing his colleague and her legislation.
In a second recent example, CNN reported on Texas legislation that would ban so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors, which CNN described as “critical health care."
“They train your brain. It's a systematic brainwashing,” Rios says of the clever phrasing. “They're doing the same thing now with ‘gender affirming care.’ It's so positive, it's a wonderful thing.”
Such trickery is right out of the Marxist playbook, she warns.
“I believe it was Marx who said if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it,” she says. “He also said you need to make the lies big. They need to be very big lies.”
As far as the most powerful alternative to left-wing news bias, Fox News Channel, Rios says the firing of primetime show host Tucker Carlson has damaged the right-leaning network terribly. To fill that vacancy, Sean Hannity is reportedly moving to Carlson’s former time slot, and both Jesse Waters and Greg Gutfeld will join Hannity in primetime.
By firing Carlson, Fox might have damaged itself so terribly that the audience might not return, predicts Rios, who is a former political analyst at Fox.
“I think people have already dropped off in such masses,” she says, “that they’re already forming other habits.”
