Activists Who Stalked Sinema in Bathroom Get Soft Touch From Cable News

Word selection by cable news hosts is often the greatest reflection of both deliberate and subconscious bias.

Look no further than the gentle cable news coverage given to students harassing and following Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) into a restroom on Sunday on the campus of Arizona State University over the senator’s opposition to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

In addition to the tepid coverage of the harassment from publications, MSNBC and CNN provided reporting on Monday that was bizarre in its soft treatment of a disgusting matter.

During the 7 a.m. ET hour of CNN’s New Day, co-host John Berman said, “No one, I think, has had a spotlight on them like Kyrsten Sinema, who went back to Arizona and was followed into a bathroom by some progressives from ASU.”

Giving credit where due, Berman’s guest, New York Times national political correspondent Jonathan Martin gave a better account than the CNN host’s vanilla description of what transpired.

“This does really capture the line-crossing that we’re seeing taking place in politics today of invading personal spaces of members of Congress, going to people’s homes. We’re seeing more and more of this, I think, in American politics today,” said Martin. “Secondly, I think in her case, it’s not going to prove very effective, John. If you know anything about Senator Sinema, she is not somebody that typically bows to those kinds of tactics. In fact, if anything, it’s going to push her to sort of dig deeper in. So I just don’t see that as a very effective tactic.”

Unfortunately, along with Fox News’ coverage, that was the exception, not the norm in terms of covering the Alinsky-like behavior of the protesters.

MSNBC’s José Díaz-Balart only mentioned the incident in passing, saying, “We saw Senator Sinema get chased down into the bathroom by immigration activists.”

“Chased” is almost a euphemism to describe what happened to Sinema, who was stalked and harassed.

During Katy Tur Reports, fill-in host Geoff Bennett said, “One of the activists followed her into the restroom standing outside the stall as the confrontation continued.”

Along with the soft word choices, MSNBC and CNN spent little time on the incident (nor will they spend a lot, if any, on Sinema being followed and harassed as she arrived back in Washington on Monday evening).

How would the media react if right-wing protesters followed Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has stood up to former President Donald Trump, into a restroom? How would reporters, anchors, and pundits feel if they were being stalked and harassed into the restroom?

If the protesters were conservatives or Republicans, the mainstream media coverage would consist of long segments, harsh coverage, and even harsher words.

As an example of that double standard, look no further than MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle not covering the Sinema incident on her show on Monday or Tuesday, but doing a segment on Tuesday about parents and other protesters showing up at school board meetings, demonstrating against coronavirus mandates and far-left curricula.

“We have seen the videos like this cropping up all over the country,” said Ruhle. “They show school board members, most of them, remember, who are unpaid volunteers, being harassed and threatened for trying to do their jobs.”

Ruhle interviewed National School Boards Association president Viola Garcia, who wrote a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday, asking “for federal law enforcement and other assistance to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation.”

The DOJ announced on Monday that is investigating such incidents.

It is one thing for parents and others to express outrage toward school boards, doing so by strongly, but respectfully, telling school board members about their frustration during public comment times. It is another for parents and others to employ a tactic of the left on college campuses and interrupt events and threaten people. Their harassment is just as outrageous as that of the activists that followed Sinema into the restroom and sought to intimidate her by violating her private space.

The media should call a spade a spade, and call intimidation what it is: Not “following,” but harassment and stalking. The word choice when describing incidents or harassment should be in the strongest terms possible, as Ruhle did regarding volatile school board meetings, no matter the agitating party. Enough with whitewashing incivility and double standards when covering the left.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.