The ideological imbalance among journalists, in combination with a society-wide shift away from fact-based standards of objectivity, could be leading some journalists to label attitudes and groups they simply dislike as politically extreme. This is to a certain extent unsurprising. It might be natural for left-leaning writers to be more concerned about the far right than their more adjacent far left, while those on the right might be more concerned about the far left than the far right. And, since most journalist are left-leaning, there would hence be the potential for an overall net media bias against anything right of center.
Consequently, the most parsimonious explanation for the unbalanced mentions of far-right and far-left political extremism in the media is journalists' well-documented left-leaning political slant, which potentially skews mentions of political extremism towards their political adversaries. But the immense cultural power of the media and the possibility that its ideological imbalance is shaping journalistic content should trigger reflection about the extent to which news-media content can accurately portray current events—especially those with political connotations.
