Introducing an interview with left-wing author Joshua Green, PBS News Hour co-anchor Geoff Bennett made a rare media admission: “Much has been made of the far right’s strong sway over the GOP and its agenda. But what doesn’t get nearly as much attention is the far left’s influence in the Democratic Party.”
Bennett could be describing his very own News Hour, PBS’s flagship weeknight news program. The “far left” certainly doesn't gain attention on taxpayer-funded PBS, at least not under that label. PBS was “far” more likely to use hostile ideological terminology to describe right-leaning groups, personalities, or policies.
MRC analysts studied the labels used by anchors, reporters and contributors on the PBS News Hour regarding American politics from June 1, 2023 to November 30, 2024. We did not include PBS News Weekend programs.The difference in labeling was stark.
Key Findings:
■ PBS staff used 162 variations of “far right” labels and only six “far left” labels, an astounding ratio of 27 to 1.
■ PBS staff also used mere "right-wing" and "left-wing" labels at a disparity of 33 to 6. So overall, the labeling disparity was 195 to 12.
■ Fascist Trump, Communist Harris: Independent of the labeling counts above, PBS staff and guests employed 17 total “fascist” labels of Donald Trump, compared to three for Kamala Harris as “communist,” with two of those three denying she was one.
Even that stark 27:1 ratio understates the full extent of the slant. “Right” labels were often targeted at specific people or groups and conveyed a sense of menace. The rare “left” labels were often merely quotes from the Republican campaign trail or amorphous descriptions that lacked the specificity or warning connotation of the right labels, or were loaded with caveats.
PBS also failed to apply “left” labels to the guests invited on to lament, unopposed, about Trump using extremist rhetoric of having extremist immigration proposals, or Republican legislation limiting abortion or transgender "health care." In fact, those guests turned around and contributed their own labeling bias, though the slant was not as stark as from PBS reporters.
PBS Reporters: “far-right” labels vs “far-left” labels: 64-2
Far-right examples: News Hour co-anchor Amna Nawaz lamented on June 2, 2023, during the drawn-out House GOP leadership fight: “….there were a lot of questions about how Speaker McCarthy would be able to handle the far-right members of his conference in particular.”
PBS reporter Laura Barron-Lopez on September 12, 2023: “And far-right Republicans have threatened a shutdown and McCarthy's gavel if their list of demands, including an impeachment inquiry, go unmet….The White House is again saying that there is no evidence, that this is -- quote -- 'extreme politics.' And to Heather's point about the list of demands that these far-right conservatives are issuing in exchange for funding the government, the White House is very eager to latch on to that and say that this is extreme Republicans trying to potentially cause a government shutdown in exchange for an impeachment inquiry, in exchange for these — a host of all these other demands.”
Nawaz’s fellow co-anchor Geoff Bennett said in a September 26, 2023 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris: “… as House Republicans fight among themselves over whether or how to extend government funding, it appears likely that the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, who's already slammed his far-right flank, as trying to burn down the House, that he might need help from Democrats.”
On October 25, 2023, Bennett said to guest Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa): “Mike Johnson is more genial than Jim Jordan, but he's no less a hard-liner. He is on the far right of the spectrum when it comes to issues like reproductive rights, same-sex marriage.”
Bennett waded into the supposed Supreme Court flag controversy on May 29, 2024: “U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told lawmakers today he won't recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 presidential election or the January 6 Capitol riot. That's despite concerns about two flags associated with far-right causes that have flown over his properties.”
Barron-Lopez questioned hard-left Yale professor Jason Stanley on November 27, 2024: “What could a second Trump term mean in terms of emboldening extremists or those who hold far-right views about the future of the country?”
Far-left: Occasionally centrist commentator David Brooks came up with one of his almost reluctant uses of a “left” label on August 30, 2024. Reflecting on the 2019 Democratic primary debates, he noted that “the Democratic Party moved pretty far left on a whole bunch of issues in ways that I thought were politically suicidal, decriminalizing the border, obviously the defunding the police, the ban on fracking.”
“Hard-right" vs “hard-left” labels: 16-1
Hard-right: Nawaz on October 2, 2023 documented one of the last acts of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who kept the government open, having “sidestepped the hard-right flank of his party and pushed through a temporary spending bill with the help of Democrats.”
Covering the race to replace McCarthy, here’s congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins on October 17, 2023: “In Congress, Jordan was a founding member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, where he gained a reputation for forgoing suit jackets and for his combative in-your-face style of politics.” They did not describe the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Progressive Caucus as "hard-left."
After Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) cited the “hard right….in the Freedom Caucus,” on the January 8, 2024 edition, Desjardins repeated the partisan Democrat’s hostile formulation: “Yes, but again, that hard right, however you want to describe them, Freedom Caucus really will be an issue in terms of getting the votes….”
Hard-left: This barely counts as a negative label, as David Brooks managed to sound sympathetic talking of the pro-Hamas mobs on college campuses on April 26, 2024: “So I think most of the protesters are appalled by the horrors the Palestinians are suffering and they're well-motivated by compassion. There are some people who are probably hard-left people, and they get to have their views.”
"Extreme right" vs "extreme left": 57-3
Extreme Right: Two groups that could actually be called “extreme,” The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, were granted that label by both anchors, Bennett and Nawaz, on the June 1, 2023 program. Yet PBS reporters have also used the label to smear conservative groups like Moms for Liberty.
On Independence Day 2023, co-anchor Amna Nawaz unwittingly revealed PBS’s gross labeling standards when she called the anti-Israel elimination terror group Hamas “extremist” (obviously before the October 7 attacks), then applied that same word, on the same program, to non-racist “militias” that celebrated 1776 and the Founding Fathers!
Nawaz used two separate labels while introducing a report by congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins: “The American Revolution and the Founding Fathers, two parts of U.S. history celebrated on July Fourth. In recent years, they have also become political and ideological tools, including at times of some extremist groups on the right.”
While interviewing Hillary Clinton on October 3, 2023, Bennett pivoted off Clinton’s reference to “extreme members” of the Republican caucus with this repetitive softball: “On this matter of extremists within the GOP, President Biden has said that the Trump Republicans, the MAGA Republicans, as he puts it, are semi-fascists, and that there's this growing authoritarian strain in the Republican Party. Do you see it that way? And what's the best way to remedy that, if you do see it that way?”
On November 8, 2023, Bennett forwarded a charge by the discredited radical leftists at Southern Poverty Law Center: “In yesterday’s election, voters across the country pushed back on the group called Moms for Liberty. They say they’re a parental rights organization. The Southern Poverty Law Center says that they’re an extremist group.”
Anchor Nawaz talked to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on February 5, 2024 about Democrats supposedly caving on immigration legislation: “You have faced some criticism from your fellow Democrats as well, progressives in particular. The caucus chair, Pramila Jayapal, said Democrats are giving into extremist views."
Extreme Left: As previously noted, even the few lefty labels tabulated were often just anchors repeating Donald Trump or J.D. Vance’s campaign rhetoric, often with a note of disapproval. PBS wouldn’t have dared call Kamala Harris “extreme” directly, the way the News Hour was comfortable doing with Republicans.
NPR’s White House correspondent and PBS commentator Tamara Keith announced on July 22, 2024: “There is a well of energy that exists for Harris and who she is and the history she could make. Republicans also want to tap into that and paint her as extreme.”
“Hard-line” right vs “hard-line” left: 25-0
Most stark was the use of “hard-line,” employed by PBS staff 25 times against conservative policies or personalities during the study period, compared to zero occasions for liberal ones. (Two guests also referred to conservatives as “hard-line.”)
Lisa Desjardins packed an impressive amount of labels into her March 21, 2024 story: "Hard-liners say the disorder is within GOP leadership, that they skirt rules and bend or break pledges. But the majority of Republicans I speak with say, no, the issue is the hard-liners, that they demand untenable positions, like allowing a government shutdown. Some hard-liners see shutdowns as leverage, even right at this moment, Amna, and others see them as a disaster.”
Here’s Bennett on November 11, 2024, after Trump’s victory: “And the president-elect is also expected to formally name Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy in the coming days. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance confirmed the selection on the social media site X. Miller worked as an adviser during Mr. Trump's first term and is known as an immigration hard-liner.”
PBS Reporters: “right-wing” vs. “left-wing: 33-6
Right-wing: PBS host John Yang talked with NPR media reporter David Folkenflik about Rupert Murdoch’s right-leaning media empire on September 21, 2023. Folkenflik ranted: “The legacy that endures is sort of the success and the fun at times of his right-wing populism, but also the punitive and pugilistic nature of it that has been ultimately quite corrosive, not only to our sense of what fair play is in journalism in this country and in some of the others, like the U.K. and Australia, in which he was so dominant.”
Bennett chatted with then-Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett on the November 7, 2023 edition on an emerging liberal bogeyman, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025: “And you report that much of the planning for a second Trump term has been outsourced to this group of right-wing think tanks dubbed Project 2025.”
Bennett on May 17, 2024: “Texas Governor Greg Abbott has pardoned a man convicted of fatally shooting a Black Lives Matter protester in the summer of 2020. Abbott had faced pressure to issue the pardon from white right-wing conservatives, including then Fox News host Tucker Carlson.”
The same evening, reporter Stephanie Sy questioned Austin-American Statesman investigative reporter Tony Plohetski about Abbott’s pardon: “….critics say this is politics, and you had right-wing pundits like Tucker Carlson calling for this for a year.”
Left-wing: Even the few left-wing references came with caveats.
On February 15, 2024, substitute anchor John Yang hemmed and hawed to Shaun Harper, Executive Director of the USC Race and Equity Center: “Shaun, I don't want to put words into Greg's mouth [Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression], but I have heard others argue against DEI, saying that colleges and universities are essentially indoctrinating students in sort of left-wing views. What do you say to that?”
On August 6, 2024, Bennett used one of the liberal media’s favorite words to neutralize Trump’s criticism of the “left-wing” Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket: “The Trump campaign is already pouncing, calling [Tim Walz] dangerously liberal and saying that the Harris/Walz ticket is the most left-wing ticket in American history.”
One of the very few genuine “left” labels aired -- not a quote, not one made sarcastically or dismissively -- was Bennett on the June 24, 2024 show talking to USA Today reporter Francesca Chambers about an upcoming Democratic primary race, in which more moderate Democrat George Latimer would defeat radical Democrat incumbent Jamaal Bowman: “Francesca, without reading too much into any one race, I mean, how much will this tell us about the strength of the Democrats’ left-wing faction."
Labeling Disparity by Guests: 52 right to 19 left
Guests interviewed on the PBS News Hour also unloaded ideological labels upon conservatives and Republicans, though not at quite the same sharp tilt as the PBS crew. The right-left label disparity from PBS guests (often political journalists) was 52-19. For example, Dr. Peter Hotez complained that the government's COVID response faced "an entire ecosystem of elected officials on the far right, together with Fox News and other outlets."
SIDEBAR: “Fascist” Trump vs.” Communist” Kamala
PBS’s labeling disparity wasn’t limited to the terms above. A “fascist” smear campaign against Donald Trump came to a head after October 22, 2024 comments made by John Kelly, the retired Marine general who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff, claiming the former president fit “into the general definition of fascist.” PBS relished using Kelly’s quotes to smear Trump as a “fascist,” without caveats or hesitation.
Desjardins on October 23, 2024: “In scathing comments in audio interviews with The New York Times, Kelly said Trump, behind the scenes, displayed the tendencies of a fascist.” Bennett repeated it that same night: “As we just heard, retired Four-Star General John Kelly, who was one of Donald Trump’s White House chiefs of staff, told The New York Times, Donald Trump would rule like a fascist if reelected.”
PBS didn’t let up. Here’s Bennett on October 25: "John Kelly, Donald Trump's longest-serving White House chief of staff, told The New York Times that he believed Donald Trump met the definition of a fascist, that he would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of the rule of law.”
Barron-Lopez got in some last licks against Trump on November 4, the day before Election Day, that Kamala Harris "was repeatedly quoting former Trump officials like his longest-serving Chief of Staff John Kelly, as well as the former Joints Chief of Staff. And their words, as they described him as -- they described Donald Trump as fascist and as dangerous.”
In all, 10 NewsHour reporters and seven guests labeled Trump or his policies as “fascist,” often in the course of repeating Kelly’s accusation, with no criticism that the label was a smear or an extreme exaggeration, save a typically mild comment from David Brooks.
Only during PBS’s special Election Night coverage, with Trump cruising toward victory, did PBS’s resident poll-watcher Amy Walter mildly suggest that calling Trump a fascist perhaps hadn’t been an effective tactic for the Democrats.
In contrast, PBS fiercely resisted when the Trump camp referred to Kamala Harris as “Comrade Kamala” or her or Democrats in general as “Communist.” The description aired a total of three times, each time by a PBS staffer -- and two of those three happened in the course of denying Harris was a communist!
On June 6, 2024, Barron-Lopez said that referring to Democrats as Marxist or communists were “common slurs” by Republicans.
Desjardins assured viewers on July 22, 2024 that Republicans were wrong about Harris: “Obviously, [Harris] is someone who is a part of a democratic republic. She is not a communist. But that is something that they’re going to try and tag her with.”
The labeling disparity documented in this study goes beyond the standard media tilt of “liberal” and “conservative” labeling, and is a grossly inappropriate stance for a tax-funded network with a congressional mandate to maintain "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.”
Methodology:
MRC analysts tabulated every use of the phrases “far right, “hard right,” “right wing, “far left,” “hard left,” “left wing,” “extreme,” “hard-line,” fascist,” and “communist” (and all variations of those phrases, i.e. with or without hyphens or spaces) pertaining to political figures, policies, and movements in American politics, that were said on air by PBS News Hour staffers (anchors, reporters, commentators, and occasional substitute commentators) during the 18 months up to and after the 2024 election (June 1, 2023 – November 30, 2024). Labels spoken by guests were also counted. Clips of politicians or other talking heads using the labels were not included.
