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There's Plenty of Gerrymandering Meandering Going on in the Press

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  May 11, 2026
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

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DNC PR Firm – CNN

  • Umm, Abby? Your favoritism is showing.

Most sports broadcasters know not to cheer for one team over the other when performing the play-by-play duties. Abby Phillip could use a lesson in that type of balanced broadcasting.

On her Friday show, she reacted to the announcement that the Virginia Supreme Court had struck down the recent vote to redraw its electoral districting map. During her introductory statements, before turning to her panel, she mentioned the various efforts made by both parties recently, but seemed to have only condemnation for one side. As an example, she brought up that Alabama’s legislature is considering reverting to an older map that states “would pack black voters into one district.” She had no condemnation, curiously, for Virginia’s attempt at doing that very thing, creating a 10-1 advantage for Democrats, or the raft of other states that have entire blue districting, specifically in the New England area. 

She then closed out her preamble thusly:

“So we are, to be frank, in the depths of hell, now, when it comes to redistricting. I don’t think there’s a better way to put it – like, there’s no bottom.”

Both Kinds of Standards – ABC NEWS

  • Trump backing actual candidates is wrong, but we’ll just overlook what Hakeem has been up to.

In more gerrymandering meandering, on ABC's This Week, Martha Raddatz was getting in on the discussion, and, in turning to former Republican House member Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, focused on the races in Indiana, where a clutch of incumbent GOP state politicians lost their primary elections after the failure to pass new voting maps in that state.

This was viewed negatively, all while ignoring that while it is not unusual for a party to invest in elected office seats, at the same time, there was Hakeem Jeffries seen dropping tens of millions on the Virginia gerrymandering vote. Making that more eyebrow-raising is that Jeffries is a New York representative, spending PAC money in another state. But this warrants no concern from Raddatz or her panel.

  Race to the Bottom – NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

  • Honestly, who thought this was a good idea?!

There have been all manner of accusations of “racism” involving these redistricting efforts. The court striking down the race-based maps drawn in Louisiana, future considerations as mentioned in Alabama, as well as Florida, and then there was the firestorm in the Tennessee legislature over the same. What has become utterly hilarious is that while the Democrats and the press are wailing over the alleged disenfranchisement of a black voting district in Tennessee, what that new map has led to is the elimination of the seat held by the current representative, Steve Cohen. It needs to be noted that Cohen is decidedly NOT a black representative, and yet his loss is deemed to be racially motivated…somehow.

As we mentioned in this column last week, on one CNN panel, it was explained that some members were arguing that removing Cohen’s position and having a black female Republican possibly winning was still considered racist. Unreal.

The best is that NPR, in an interview with Cohen, actually saw a need to apologize to the congresscritter for mentioning how he is a white man representing that black district.

Pathological Media Amnesia – THE BOSTON GLOBE

  • Seems the only difference is the letter after their name.

This is one of those instances where an item fits across a few of our categories here at RFTH. Could be “Both Kinds of Standards,” could be “Gilded Reframe,” could be “Low-Octane Gaslighting”...

But this fits this category a little bit better for the delicious fact that it is the same reporter covering the same story, but with very noticeable differences in approach.

Current high prices at the gas pump are “misery” today. Back when Biden was in office, and prices hit this level, it was a noble cause for the sake of our democracy!

Reporting on the Mirror – MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICES

  • Will the robots be qualifying for the company dental plan?

Following a trend recently spotted at the Associated Press, The New York Times reported that at McClatchy News Service, owner of 30 regional newspapers across the country, they have announced the use of A.I. to create targeted content for readers.

Dubbed a “Content Scaling Agent,” the program will take published news items and reconfigure the content therein to aim for a broader audience and generate business. The idea is to either reconfigure work based on the audience or possibly use published information in different or cobbled together elements to generate more content. Based on internal communications, the outlet described the program in this fashion:

“We need more stories, and we need more inventory,” Eric Nelson, the vice president of local news, told staff members in a meeting on March 17. “This is a tool where we can take our strong content and find new audiences, angles and entry points.” He also said the company was experimenting with feeding in reporters’ notes to create articles.

That last nugget is what the AP has announced it would be doing: feeding raw notes into the program and having it burp out a fully fleshed article.

The reporters at McClatchy have been largely opposed to this, and many are declaring they want their bylines removed from any content that was crafted with the A.I. program. Says Nelson of this resistance, “Journalists who embrace and experiment with this tool are going to win. Journalists who are defiant will fall behind.”