BERNIE SANDERS IS BEING IGNORED BY THE MEDIA, WHY?

…The “Rumpled” Senator, Bernie Sanders

 

Sanders draws the largest crowds, but gets the least attention.

I wonder why that even though the speeches of Senator Bernie Sanders, have had larger crowds, even more than those of “The Donald”, the main-stream media seems to continually ignore this senator from Vermont. 

When you look into how the major political writers have treated this candidate, compared to the other potential candidates, the number of columns written about Bernie is probably less than all of those others in the race….together.

Even Martin O’Malley, the declared Democratic candidate and former Governor of Maryland, that continually scores less than 4% in the polls, has been written about by more writers than Senator Sanders.

Yes, it’s understandable that a high-profile candidate such as Hillary Clinton, who was running so high in the polls for months and would be receiving the bulk of the written copy in the news.  But Bernie has slowly eaten away and passed Hillary’s lead and he has done it without using one negative ad and with only grass-roots donations that average less than $80 per donation.

But as an example of the ommision, the New York Times has published less than a dozen pieces on Sanders.  And the way the articles have been written, one would suspect that Bernie was 50 points below Hillary in the polls.  Not being ahead of Hillary as he currently is in New Hampshire. 

When they do write about Bernie, most of the comments are about his thinning white hair, his age and that he is a self-described “socialist”.

First, let’s clear the air about what the media is calling Bernie, and what he calls himself.  

Bernie calls himself a “Democratic Socialist”, not a “Socialist”.  It must be understood that these two terms are immensely different. 

A “Socialist” believes that the government should own and control the means of production and distribution of all their nation’s factories.  

 

A “Democratic Socialists” believes that both the government and the society should be run democratically in order to meet the public’s needs, not to make profits for just a few, as those do that believe in “Capitalism”.  A “Democratic Socialist” does not believe that the government should own and control private or corporate companies or factories.

As to the image of Bernie and his sometimes unkempt thinning hair, his rumpled suit and his age and mental capabilities, Mr. Sanders has never paid much attention to being the “best dressed” in the US Senate.  In addition, his mental ability and capacity has never been under any question.  And at 73, he is only 6 years older than Hillary Clinton.

Ronald Reagan was 69 when he was inaugurated and 77 when he retired.  Up to this point, Bernie has been on a major grueling work schedule, still taking care of his Senatorial duties while crisscrossing the nation and holding record-breaking rallies.  He appears on many cable news shows while always demonstrating a very high level of mental and physical energy.  Actually, much more activity than most of the candidates in either party.

But the real question is, that for the one individual that out-draws all of his political competitors, whether it’s in Nevada, Arizona, Alabama, Pennsylvania or Florida, why are his comments and policies being ignored by the press? That is the real issue.

Let’s take for instance, what is considered by many to be the biggest and best US newspaper, the New York Times.

The Times is only one of the mainstream media outlets that does not typically report on Sanders, especially on his policies. One writer has written that “There is  a ‘wall of silence’ built by the media when it comes to serious reporting and analysis of his [Sanders’] policies; or when analyzing or reporting on the policies of his opponents.  There’s a failure to mention Sanders' in contrast, especially when his is the more progressive position. This behavior hasn't gone unnoticed by readers. You can see numerous complaints from readers about the Times organization's bias toward Sanders.”

In the New York Times comments section; on the Facebook pages; in comments sections of all the major publications, and just about everywhere else, the readers complain about the lack of substantive coverage.  There are also many comments regarding the bias in the little bit that is eventually published.

Even a Times writer “Jason Horowitz” wrote a story: "Bernie Sanders Draws Big Crowds to His 'Political Revolution", which drew over 1600 comments, double what the most popular columns usually fetch.  And most of the comments were in protest over the obvious bias of the Times' recognized lack of coverage of Bernie Sanders in the news.

Hillary gives her speeches and everybody writes about them.  But after the initial column about her giving a speech, you don’t get much because in this early stage of her campaign, Hillary doesn’t give the public much in the way of specifics.

Now, she is not as bad as the GOP’s, Clown in Chief Donald Trump, where you get zero specifics.

But with Bernie, his campaign has centered around economic justice and his specific plans to reform banking, taxation, trade, stimulate the economy, promote manufacturing, and institute specific jobs programs.  There are a number of published specifics on Bernie’s policies.

Today, all of the other candidates from both parties have given so few specifics about their plans, it is impossible to do a case-by-case comparison between the potential candidates.  But with candidate Sanders, it’s all right there in black & white.

I have been a big fan of the Nobel Economist, Paul Krugman.  But disappointingly, Krugman has on three occasions, talked up Hillary Clinton's economic platform, specifically on US wages, without so much as mentioning Bernie Sanders.  Clinton favors a minimum wage of $15 per hour in New York City, and $12 an hour nationally. Sanders has called for the minimum wage to be raised to $15 an hour for everyone.  But not one word about this in the Krugman‘s Times article.

I have also been totally stumped by some of the attacks on Bernie and his followers as being racists….?  The attacks seem to try and remove any recognition of Sanders excellent record on civil rights.  

The attacks on Sanders started with a bazaar refusal to give Bernie any credit for taking part in the civil rights movement.  However, Sanders has a longstanding, near-perfect rating by the NAACP and the ACLU.  The black New Jersey Senator, Cory Booker, is one of the few who have spoken up in defense of Sanders' lifelong record with the African-American community.

Sanders’ focus today for his campaign has been mostly of a public official in support of economic justice.  But that does not mean he pays no attention to racial justice. His speeches always make mention of the racial disparities in our society.

The idea that Sanders' position on solving the problems of racial injustice is by only addressing economic inequality is totally false. Sanders has long been known to say that racial inequality is a problem that needs to be addressed in parallel with economic inequality.  He states that the two issues cannot be separated. 

Unfortunately, the nation’s mainstream media totally avoids any mention of that reality, even though Bernie Sanders has made that clear from the first day he became a public servant.

Copyright G.Ater  2015