Marie Claire uses progressive org head as the only correct opinion on how to vote in midterms
August 5, 2022
In a recent piece from Marie Claire headlined, “Why the 2022 Midterm Elections Are So Critical,” the magazine suggests that there is only one correct way to think about the upcoming elections.
To make that point, the article uses Yasmin Radjy, the executive director of “a progressive political organization” called Swing Left, as its main source.
Radjy is somewhat deviant from the mean of political views in the country, and that’s not a problem. But reporting her views to an audience of teenage girls and young women as the only way is. There is no consideration of how her views are, in themselves, on just one side of politics. Nor is there anyone else quoted. Admittedly, we’d need to go quite a long way right of the median to match the, umm, lean here but the entire piece is about how this “Lean Left” is the only just and righteous way to view either matters or the coming election.
Anyone who is being fair about such matters would note that there are those who disagree. That being rather the reason we do have elections. The Marie Claire problem is that all of that is entirely left unsaid.
We are aware that this isn’t how this works but the piece is so partial that we’d almost expect it to be declared as a campaign contribution.
“I recently left my job in the Biden administration supporting our nation’s economic recovery to lead Swing Left because …” she begins in her explanation.
It doesn’t really matter what comes after that, does it? For what Ms. Radjy believes and says is being reported as fact and that’s just swinging a lot too left for anything that is even attempting to be an impartial media outlet.
Marie Claire ranks among the top 300 news media publishers in the United States and gains close to 10 million visits a month to the website. Its content is targeted toward its readership, which is made up largely of young women – and the magazine’s bread-and-butter is being “the site that women turn to for information on fashion, style, hairstyles, beauty, women’s issues, health…” according to their site — but not mentioned in their list is politics. The danger of including politics on a site where readers don’t go looking for it is that it takes advantage of readers who may not be looking for political news on Marie Claire or elsewhere — and accordingly, their pieces may be the only view they see.