Newsmax worked up some outrage — over a threat to its right-wing programming, of course — in a Jan. 30 “Newsmax Wires” article:
New York’s Manhattan borough president has launched a campaign targeting Newsmax and seeking its ban in the city’s taxicabs.
Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat, announced this week that he is demanding Mayor Zohran Mamdani pull Newsmax from the city’s taxi TV screens.
Newsmax called the move an “act of pure censorship.”
New York City’s taxicabs are privately owned. The City issues licenses — called “medallions” — to cab owners.
Last year, Newsmax signed with Curb a deal to provide a one-minute news update hosted by one of the network’s anchors to over 15,000 taxis across the country.
Newsmax wouldn’t admit its bias, but crowed that it’s allegedly everywhere:
Newsmax is ubiquitous on TVs and devices — carried in tens of thousands of hotels, bars, restaurants, commercial centers, and governmental offices nationwide.
Newsmax is also carried by every major cable and satellite provider, reaching about 60 million homes, while its streaming channel Newsmax 2 is available in over 100 millions through apps and OTT systems.
[…]In response, Newsmax said in a statement: “This is a pure act of censorship targeting a news organization reaching over 50 million Americans regularly. Newsmax plays it straight and that drives the far left crazy.”
Well, no — Newsmax has an indisputable right-wing bias and most certainly does not play things straight. Hoylman-Sigal pointed out Newsmax’s “history of misinformation and disingenuous reporting,” which Newsmax did not dispute, given that it’s true as judged by the large settlements it paid out to Smartmatic and Dominion.
Unsurprisingly, this resulted in more highly biased coverage at Newsmax:
- Rep. Malliotakis: Don’t ‘Censor’ Newsmax in NYC Cabs
- Rep. Van Duyne to Newsmax: NYC Censorship, ‘Badge of Honor’
- Backlash in NYC Over Calls to Ban Newsmax in Taxis
- Rep. Malliotakis: Banning Newsmax in NYC Taxis ‘Ludicrous’
- Matt Taibbi to Newsmax: NYC Cab Ban on Newsmax Would Be Unconstitutional
Surprisingly, Newsmax did eventually give the the other side of the story, though it wasn’t until days later, in a Feb. 2 article by Eric Mack:
Citing his disdain for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, far-left Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal on Monday doubled down on his call to pull Newsmax from the city’s taxis, claiming the network is “downplaying the horrors” of ICE activities in Minnesota in New York.
“Newsmax is a right-wing news organization, and it doesn’t fairly report the news,” Hoylman-Sigal claimed to Newsmax host John Tabacco during a brief, tense exchange following a press conference in Lower Manhattan.
Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who backed democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, continued, “If I’m in a New York City taxicab, I don’t want to see right-wing news. I want to see local news … that provides me local information — not right-wing information in an echo chamber that is downplaying the horrors that is happening to New Yorkers and Minnesotans and Americans when it comes to ICE.”
The 60-year-old former New York State assemblyman claimed Newsmax “downplayed the death of Renee Good … It’s appalling. Newsmax should be ashamed of itself. It has no business in New York City.”
Newsmax didn’t respond of Hoylma-Sigal’s claims directly, instead repeating its claim of censorship; it also repeated a claim by Curb baselessly insisting that “All programming has consisted solely of standard news segments reviewed to ensure compliance with our content standards.”