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Comment by ipaddr | Hacker News Reader

It leans left and elitist. An American running for president use to call it the Havana Times.

And people call Cambridge MA the People's Republic of Cambridge despite hosting multiple DoD labs.

Moreover, Cambridge’s Harvard and MIT produced many scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project. There’s always been interesting military tech where research started in Cambridge.

As for People’s Republic, that was long immortalized in the bar, “People’s Republik” close to Harvard. Closed down I think around or just after the pandemic.

To be fair, there was overlap between "Communists" and "scientists that worked on the Manhattan project".

Just curious, which "American running for president"? I googled "Havana Times" and "Globe and Mail" and couldn't find anything about it. Is it an American who would know much about the Canadian news media? Because - as a Canadian who routinely reads newspapers - that's a position that's wildly difficult to square with my reality.

Various groups assessing the issue find it's a little to the right of centre. My personal take is that it's a little more right-leaning than this implies, but I'm just one guy.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-globe-and-mail/

> Overall, we rate The Globe and Mail slightly right-center biased due to editorial positions and High for factual reporting based on proper sourcing.

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/globe-and-mail-media-bi...

> Though the Globe and Mail's political stance has shifted over the last several decades, today the paper routinely exhibits a center bias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Globe_and_Mail

> A 2017 survey of Canadians found that the Globe and Mail was perceived to be the most biased national news media outlet [...] Respondents had mixed opinions as to whether its coverage favoured the Liberal Party or the Conservatives. A 2010 survey found that the Globe and Mail was perceived as slightly right of centre, in similar standing to the bulk of other Canadian news organizations.

The addition of 'elitist' is a key indicator here. It is a label used by the American far-right for anything even slightly left of their position which may correct or expose them. Whereas the right wing relies on the firehose of falsehood, the 'elitist' term is used to attack those that may speak truth against them, particularly media and education. They're portrayed as 'out of touch', and thus sought for destruction. They could correct the lies or shine light on their misdeeds, and so must be slandered and attacked maximally. The right wing views these elements as a threat to their goals to seize power, both in actual power and in control of the message.

The position you see doesn't even have to fully make sense to you, because 'slightly right of centre' on your scale would be nearly 'communist' on their scale.

Here's some articles from over 10 years ago, where this term got popularized by the 'tea party' movement, where they try to analyze this smear term. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/10/the-right-s-favo... https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/opinion/30jacoby.html https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/who-are-they-calli...

Elitist was my word based on a few things:

- highest reading level for daily paper - most expensive daily newspaper - readership in the highest income / education bracket - storied elite history - writing from an elitist point of view to an upper class reader

Pat Buchanan.

I see them more left centre because of their support for the liberals. I think they try to stay as centre as possible but move right on class issues.

The American Overton window isn’t the only one.

It leans conservative for Canadians - on the American political spectrum Danielle Smith might be considered more radically progressive than Bernie Sanders since she runs a government that provides provincial health insurance.

Framing politics by American standards is rarely helpful.

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