There exists more than a “communism to laissez-fairs capitalism” axis when people are talking about right vs left. I don’t think it’s productive to point this out when I think it’s generally understood what they mean in this specific context. In “mainstream” American politics (by which we can define by what appears on television and newspapers”) “left” implies mostly advancing the progressive front on racial and sexual issues, as distinguished from the American right, which would rather stop where we are on those social issues and cut taxes or something. Both of them sometimes play a little lip service to the other issues but not much more, since most other things are dictated by long-term service personnel and/or large mega corporations.

Even that I don’t think should really be thought of as a single axis - though they’re few enough now, there’s reactionaries who see capitalism as the source of all modern ills beginning with a very old ideological tradition that would look down just as much on communism.

How would you describe the political leanings of CNN?