Opinion: The Media’s Unconscious Bias and How It Impacts Coverage of Kamala Harris

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

With President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is definitely seeking re-election in 2024, Republican attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris have predictably gone into over-drive.

In many ways, Harris represents everything the Republican Party is terrified of: mainly, a woman-of-color who has over-achieved at every stage of life and challenges the status-quo of white men controlling the reins of power. Since arriving on the national stage, Harris has been the target of an unprecedented toxic combination of sexism and racism – not just from the Republican Party but from the establishment as well. As we look ahead to the 2024 election, it’s time to examine the very real impact that hidden, and at times, not-so-hidden bias that permeates the media.

Case in point, Thomas Friedman recently wrote in the New York Times, “It’s no secret that Vice President Harris has not elevated her stature in the last two-plus years. I don’t know what the problem is…” Political strategist Mike Murphy smugly remarked, “What swing voter wakes up and says, ‘Boy, Kamala Harris is going to move me?’”

Darry Stragow, publisher of the California Target Book, was recently quoted by Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton saying, “There’s a sense that she may have come too far too fast.”

Unsurprisingly, these observations all came from white men.

It made me wonder, how in the world are these white men qualified to sufficiently evaluate the first female Vice President in our nation’s history who also is a person-of-color? Men like this have no idea what it is like to walk in the shoes, or should I say kicks, of Kamala Harris.

The media elite recently congregated to celebrate the White House Correspondents Association Dinner and while I enjoyed the comedic musings of Roy Wood, Jr., I couldn’t help but notice that all six of the night’s journalism award winners were white men.

Now let me very clear here, I am not in any way suggesting these journalists didn’t deserve this recognition or to in any way take away from their body of work, but it seemed conspicuous that an event dedicated to journalism omitted any journalists of color from the awards portion of the evening.

For all the progress that has been made at diversifying newsrooms, the fact remains that the majority of newsrooms in America are white. Two-thirds of the New York Times newsroom is white. The Associated Press reported that 76% of its full-time news employees in the United States are white. The Columbia Journalism Review noted in 2018 that “racial and ethnic minorities comprise almost 40% of the US population, yet they make up less than 17 percent of newsroom staff at print and online publications, and only 13% of newspaper leadership.”

I don’t believe for a second that any journalist or legitimate media company has it out for Kamala Harris. But I do believe that there is a certain degree of white and/or male bias that colors how she is covered. We are all shaped by our own life experiences, so it’s understandable how white and/or male reporters and commentators and editors and publishers miss the mark about the first Black and South Asian woman to ascend to the Vice Presidency.

That’s not to say that the Vice President doesn’t warrant scrutiny or criticism. I’m not suggesting she is infallible or that any journalist should go easy on her. That would be absurd. But I do think the press overall needs to be careful about blindly accepting narratives and not actually seeing who she is, what she’s doing, and more importantly, how she is impacting real people, especially people that don’t look like you.

The truth is Republicans are hoping the media does their dirty work for them. They are hoping you broadcast every sexist slight, every racial trope, every bit of rhetorical awfulness that has come to define the GOP. They are counting on the media and their unconscious white man bias to be the delivery vehicle of their message of hate, and by doing so, normalizing it and cementing their narratives as fact. My only ask is that the next time you sit down to write or talk about Vice President Kamala Harris, you take a beat, step outside your skin, and honestly ask yourself if you would write or say the same thing about George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, or Mike Pence.

Kurt Bardella is a Democratic Party strategist and former Spokesperson & Senior Advisor for the House Oversight Committee Republican Majority and former Press Secretary for Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Follow him @KurtBardella.

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

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!