FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING

Challenging media bias since 1986.

FAIR

FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.

Challenging media bias since 1986
▶ ADVANCED SEARCH
FAIR
post
January 13, 2020

CNN’s Sanders Hit Piece Doesn’t Pass the Smell Test

CNN headshots of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren

 

Election Focus 2020CNN (1/13/20) has an anonymously sourced hit piece out today on Bernie Sanders, claiming that at a meeting in Elizabeth Warren’s home on December 18, 2018, he told her “a woman can’t win” the presidency.

The article, by CNN correspondent MJ Lee, is so journalistically shoddy that someone reading only the first few paragraphs would end up believing that it is a fact that the current top-polling candidate for the February 3 Iowa Caucus actually said that. Never is Sanders’ “quote” prefaced with the term “allegedly.”

None of the four anonymous staffers/friends making the charge of Sanders sexism were actually witnesses who were apparently in the room that day. Two, according to Lee, spoke to Warren “shortly after” that meeting. The other two “sources” were described only as people who “knew about the meeting.”

CNN: Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in private 2018 meeting that a woman can't win, sources say

CNN (1/13/19) on Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren: Let’s you and him fight.

Sanders issued a blistering denial to CNN, saying, “It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn’t win.” He added:

It’s sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016.

So far, Warren has not commented on the story, either to confirm or deny it.

The timing of this poorly sourced and poorly written story, appearing the day before a crucial candidates’ debate and days before the start of the actual primary season, on a network that has been hostile to or dismissive of Sanders for years, is a journalistic outrage.

On its face, the claim allegedly made by Lee’s four anonymous sources makes no sense. Sanders is in fact on the record as far back as 1988, saying, “In my view, a woman could be elected president of the United States.” As Sanders points out in his debunking of CNN’s story, since then a woman has actually won the popular vote for the presidency;  Hillary Clinton, whom Sanders campaigned for, could have won the electoral college as well, if she hadn’t neglected campaigning in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Why were CNN’s sources allowed to makes such an explosive, far-fetched claim anonymously? Anonymity is most justifiably granted to protect sources from retaliation for revealing damaging information about their superiors; would Warren staffers (assuming they were the source) be fired for giving an accurate account of their candidate’s conversation? When corporate media withhold the names of sources to allow them to make attacks against rivals without political consequences, that is an abuse of anonymous sourcing.

Sanders is clearly alarming powerful elements of America’s ruling elite: corporate executives who fear what is now being considered a possible Sanders presidency, and Democratic Party leaders who fear a Sanders presidential nomination will cut the party off from the river of cash it and its favored candidates have been collecting for decades from major industrial sectors, from Wall Street to Hollywood to the arms industry and the healthcare industrial complex. Not to mention the corporate media that are backed by ads from all these sectors.

This hit piece has the feel of the kind of attack that Sanders supporter Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, 12/27/19) warned of once Sanders’ polling began taking off and he could no longer be simply ignored.

Messages to CNN can be sent here (or via Twitter @CNN). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.

 

FAIR’s work is sustained by our generous contributors, who allow us to remain independent. Donate today to be a part of this important mission.

Share

Related Posts

Comments

  1. Thank you for exposing this as a “hit piece”. Because it is absurd and so out of character to even consider that Senator Sanders would ever say something so shallow and stupid.
    As lifelong corruption fighter Zephyr Teachout has shared in this endorsement tweet below, Senator Sanders stands on principle:
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1210654760510070786

    This sleazy hit piece smacks of desperation.

      • Well, Warren had to go public and say that. Clearly she tried to have staffers leak it and it blew up in her face when she refused to comment and Sanders denied that he’d said it, giving an excellent reason: Hillary did win, just not in the right places to get the electoral votes she needed, and that was because she didn’t go there to talk to the “deplorables.” If she’d denied it had been said, she would have had some angry staffers who’d gone out on a limb for her, and if she’d said nothing, her campaign would be toast. Sorry. She looks desperate to me, and this looks like a desperate gambit to take down a competitor for the progressive vote. Warren has gone into the gutter, and is willing to destroy any chance for a progressive Democrat to run against Trump. Remember her when Biden becomes the candidate and Trump gets a second term.

        • Warren, in her “sort of” confirmation of the story, doesn’t actually quote Sanders. She says, according to an interview in Time magazine, that during their two-hour meeting two years ago (sic, it was just over one year ago on 12/12/18) to discuss the 2020 election, “among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate. I thought a woman could win; he disagreed.”
          That leaves a lot out and a lot of room for interpretation. She isn’t saying what the anonymous sources presumably on her staff told CNN which was that Sanders flat out said “a woman can’t win the presidency.” He was, he says, talking about how Trump would “weaponize” ever tactic he could to win, including using sexist arguments to attack a female candidate, which could indeed, in our sexist electorate, hurt a woman’s chances to win, and no doubt did in Hillary Clinton’s case, hurt her among the white male working class voters who jumped from Obama to Trump in 2016, or who stayed home on election day. This was a cheap shot by Warren, especially coming at this point in the campaign, and the gutless way she let the unattributed story in CNN fester for a day with a “no comment” to CNN. At this point she deserves to lose this campaign. She has shown that winning to her means more than getting a progressive candidate as the Democratic nominee.

      • Keep posting the same old tired crap. Bernie would never have said it, we all know it and it is just another piece of propaganda designed to throw us off the truth and to allow “Their” choice to be the nominee. Want to see Trump win again? Go ahead dumb a$$e$, apparently the last time taught you nothing. You fruitcakes at the DNC think we are going to accept your choices because well after all Trump is so horrible. You know WHAT IS HORRIBLE? You scumbags attempting to impede Bernie Sanders. We know who owns you DNC, we know!!! And so, go ahead and watch none of us come out and then, you will start to understand why your choices are never and will never be our choices… and you will have four more years to absorb the lesson. Unless you turn the dang ole bus around and start listening to your constituents. Stop obeying those who are buying your loyalty!!! This is OUR country, not some corporation…

      • The Washington Post is now quoting two other sources “with knowledge of the December 2018 meeting” as saying: “Two people with knowledge of the conversation at the 2018 dinner at Warren’s home told The Washington Post that Warren brought up the issue by asking Sanders whether he believed a woman could win,” the report said. “One of the people with knowledge of the conversation said Sanders did not say a woman couldn’t win but rather that Trump would use nefarious tactics against the Democratic nominee.”

        The CNN story is not holding up, and Warren’s weak statement in support of the story and the leakers on her staff is also looking like an effort to weasel out of the claim that Sanders had said “a woman can’t win the presidency.”

        CNN should never have run this piece based on anonymous sources. It’s biting them now. But then if this was meant to be a hit on Sanders, who cares? It’s working. That’s the danger of poor journalism. The damage is done and the lack of fairness and standards is soon forgotten.

        • The mainstream media is trying to make hay of this because of their ideological opposition to the Sanders campaign. The New York Times sub-headline of the debate tonight was “Sanders and Warren Clash on a Woman’s Chance of Winning White House”. That’s a not very subtle misrepresentation of the story. Bernie never argued a woman couldn’t be president. He argued the opposite and denied the accusation.

          I don’t think this will ultimately move the dial much on his support. It looks desperate and stinks like you said. If Warren’s campaign persists to try and smear Sanders over flimsy ad hominem attacks it’ll backfire.

  2. On the otber hand i have been hearing that women can’t win and they refetence Clinton as an example!!!! I hear this on MSNBC and the host rarely corrects this!!

  3. So,we know Dave Lindorff’s purely speculative rebuttal, as deeply sourced as CNN’s. I will grant that CNN is both not high on Bernie (a position they share with lots of people, lots of Democrats, in fact) and too high on Biden but then Dave seems to be not too high on CNN. tit for tat. Personally I see NOTHING in Bernie’s past that would preclude him saying, in 2018, after Hillary, that he didn’t think a woman could win the Presidency – it’s a speculative opinion that so far at least is also a match to reality. And no, I am not anti-Bernie, or pro-Warren or pro-Biden for that matter. I am holding fire until the real contest begins, when it’s down to 2 or 3.

  4. THE RIVER OF CASH. The top reason behind all kinds of evil. This profound phrase arrives in an excellent analysis offered today by FAIR.

  5. “Hillary Clinton, whom Sanders campaigned for, could have won the electoral college as well, if she hadn’t neglected campaigning in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.”

    That’s the Misogynist Theory of the 2016 election, in which it’s all the woman’s fault. Never mind Republican cheating, the corporate press, Bernie Sanders’ negative campaign, James Comey, Wikileaks, Cambridge Analytica, and Mother Russia.

    Re those swing states: it is likely the votes in those states were flipped:
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/wisconsin-michigan-pennsylvania-election-hillary-clinton-hacked-manipulated-donald-trump-swing-a7433091.html?fbclid=IwAR0nMvTB_zfgOBf9BNVGOpAZ10YINpSJv3Deb2mYDewYbvpTyNiFbpjI94g

    • I disagree. It’s not the misogynist theory- it’s the class analysis theory. Clinton didn’t campaign in rust belt states with high working-class populations who were desperate for a change in politics. If she had been more responsive to the needs of the working class of this country, she probably could have won. I don’t think the gender question factors in as heavily here as class does. Clinton came across as an out of touch millionaire at a time when people felt the economy wasn’t working for them.

    • Hillary lost because she was a failure as a candidate, not because she is a woman or the other list of excuses you posted above. She lost for the same reasons Biden will lose: a bad voting record, poor policies, and a lack of enthusiasm. People want a populist anti establishment president. They got a fraud in Trump, but he at least spoke to the pain regular people are feeling. Hillary erased their pain and called people deplorable. She depressed the base. The DNC cannot self reflect and admit that because it is contradictory to the way they do business and their corporate fundraising model.

    • Bill Clinton counseled Trump to run.
      Hillary Clinton directed the media to elevate Trump as front-runner.
      The entire state of West Virginia voted for Bernie over Clinton, the delegates gave it to Clinton.
      Oregon voted 72% in favor of Sanders over Clinton, the delegates gave it to Clinton.
      Many, many, many states voted for Sanders over Clinton. Yet the delegates gave it to Clinton.
      No Russians needed. $145 Million to the Clinton Foundation from Russian energy companies.
      FACT: Trump was a HUGE donor to the Clinton’s campaigns and foundation.
      FACT: Trump and Clinton’s share the same address for many “businesses”
      FACT: We don’t know how many businesses they have in common because we don’t have Trump’s tax returns
      PREDICTION: Biden will drop out amid the Ukraine scandal about to go down and
      Hillbot is going to announce she’s running to ensure a Trump win.

    • We didn’t blame ‘wimmin’ for Hellary’s loss. We blamed her posturing self-imporatnt ass. SHE lost and it wan’t because of men.
      She was a shit candidate who couldn’t get people off their couches and out of their houses.
      Now go fuck yourself.

  6. Seems like you’re letting the Warren campaign off the hook, though. Agreed that CNN is a sheer propaganda network w/no journalistic integrity.

  7. Clearly an attempt to take down Sanders at a time when he appears poised to become the front runner in multiple key states. I don’t believe he said this, and even if he did, he did not mean what the headlines insinuate he did. Bernie would not say that he thinks a woman shouldn’t win- he doesn’t believe that. He may have been expressing an opinion about the current state of American politics as it is, not as it should be. I’ve heard feminists make the claim that “a woman can’t win” so many times! But when Sanders might have said it, it’s sexism? What nonsense.

  8. “When corporate media withhold the names of sources to allow them to make attacks against rivals without political consequences, that is an abuse of anonymous sourcing.”

    Exactly!

    It’s not just FOX that utilizes this tactic.

  10. CNN’s corporate masters are getting nervous now that a Bernie presidency looks like a possibility. That piece was complete speculation and fantasy. I expect more smearing from CNN and others in the future.

  11. This is only the tip of the iceberg: FAIR has already documented the absurd willingness of MSNBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc to publish misleading/outright false negative stories and assertions about Sanders, and that was before he had surged to a comfortable 2nd in the primary race. Now that he has the momentum and is being treated as a genuine threat to win the nomination, we should expect the propaganda to ratchet up accordingly.

  12. Please do not fail to mention that Elizabeth’s carefully timed Iowa complaints also do not pass the sniff test. She is part of the establishment that you describe: “major industrial sectors, from Wall Street to Hollywood to the arms industry and the healthcare industrial complex.” What the DNC Does Not Want You to Find Out About Elizabeth Warren
    https://medium.com/@allenkithowell/what-the-dnc-does-not-want-you-to-find-out-about-elizabeth-warren-116be1d9bb7c

  13. Very suspicious that two Warren smear pieces come out against Bernie at the same time right before the next debate. Bernie is going to eat Warren’s lunch for not denying them.
    By the way, Bernie encouraged Warren to run for president in 2015. Plus, he fought for women’s rights. So there is that.

  14. The only way I see Sanders and Warren recovering from this stupid pissing match is for them to reach a public agreement that they’ll both run, both refrain from personal attacks and identity political gaming, and that both of them will agree that whichever one obtains the lower delegate total by the end of the primaries will ask those delegates to switch to the one who got the higher count. That’s likely to be the only way we’ll see a progressive win the nomination. They could agree to name the loser as Vice president, or if there was a good political argument for picking someone else for VP, to name the one pledging over their delegates to another significant post in their administration — perhaps Labor Secretary or Secretary of State for Sanders and Treasury Secretary or Secretary of State for Warren.

    Refusal to agree to such a deal would be an admission that ego has triumphed over the revolutionary goal of taking over the corrupt Democratic Party and fighting to win a new society in the US.

    Dave Lindorff

  15. I went to the Warren campaign Website to read the statement some are now reporting she made confirming the story.

    I searched for “Sanders” — and then for “Bernie”, just in case — but got no results back.

    Maybe it’s a Rashomon moment with differing recollections of an event two years ago?

  16. Just a friendly correction, you mistyped the year as 2019 in the byline. I got very co fused thinking this was an out of date article when I first read it!

  17. At one time I thought that Warren might make a suitable VP candidate with Bernie. For a few months, before Bernie joined the race and for a few months after, I supported her, figuring she would be better than the rest of the declared and potential Democratic candidates. Now I believe she has zero credibility, absolutely no ethics and would drag down any ticket she was on. If she served in any administration in a cabinet position, she couldn’t be trusted to fully support that administration. I now actually have a lower opinion of her than I do of Joe Biden.

    All you need to know that this is a lie is Bernie’s 40+ year public record and the fact that no similar claim has been made of his personal conduct (quite the contrary – see link supplied by Kevin Schmidt).

    Calling out how neoliberal policies have wreaked economic havoc with large parts of the U.S. does not qualify as “running a negative campaign”. It is merely expressing the truth that millions of Americans continue to experience. I am not an identity voter. I vote based upon policies presented and the degree to which I trust the candidate. Sorry to hear that Warren thinks it’s all about gender and that she can use this as a weapon.

  19. He may have said, given Trump’s misogyny, that a woman can’t beat Trump. Sanders is telling the truth yet again. Unfortunately, Warren is proving that she is untrustworthy and dishonest. Just a “Player in the game,”

  22. Elizabeth has proven her ability to lie with ease and has now thrown Sanders under the bus under pivotal moments. I would never vote for her because she has changed direction so many times, defended her lies and has not taken any accountability for doing so. Elizabeth Warren needs to drop out. But in the process, let’s pray to god that Hillary doesn’t jump in, which is what I believe is happening behind the scenes. Hillary is going to jump in and save the day, while she hands another loss over to the man her husband counseled to run and the man she directed the media to elevate. Her business parter. Where are those tax returns again??

  23. If CNN had four sources saying that Warren told Bernie in a private meeting that a 78 year old white man could not be elected president, all of you would be cheering CNN for its fine reporting. And so wound this “FAIR” column.

    • It was three sources. The fourth one says Sanders did not say “a woman can’t win the presidency.”

      But CNN didn’t have that in their piece for some reason, even though they mentioned four sources, only saying that three agreed about what was said. Hmmmmmm. Where were the editors on this hit piece?

      • On the other hand, CNN would never have run a piece based on hearsay from anonymous sources saying Warren had said a 78 year old man could never win the presidency. First because they’d rather have Warren running against Trump, and second because that would also end up being critical of Biden, whom CNN would most like to be the nominee.

  24. This CNN “breaking news” story also was put out the day BEFORE the last debate before the Iowa Caucus. The debate is going to be on CNN.

  25. Even if Sanders said what she claims and it is not just her interpretation of what he said, the game she is playing is just like what Trump does .

    People can SEE what she is doing and I suspect a lot of people do not like it one bit.

    She may believe she will net votes from Sanders over this, but I think she is wrong.

    And the probability that she will be asked by Bernie to be his running mate if he gets the nomination is now zero.

  26. shame on FAIR throwing Elizabeth under the bus to protect Bernie. He could have just said,” yeah, I disagreed. I want to be president and even if I did say in 1988 I thought a woman could be elected, not this time, not 2020 when I’m so close.”
    I believe her. I believe her. I believe her. I’m fed up throwing women under the bus. especially this one. I’m fed up avoiding saying what I really think about Bernie. I worked as hard as I could and successfully to win Texas delegates for Bernie against Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth will be better president and is the one to defeat the man who brags about getting away with grabbing women by the pussy.

    • FAIR and I didn’t “throw Warren under the bus.” Fair published a piece of trash journalism based upon four improperly anonymous sources unwilling to have it even known that they were Warren staffers. Clearly this was a careful leak approved by Warren, designed to damage Sanders while letting her skate free of blame for the hit. It didn’t work because CNN really caught it for using such shoddy journlistic standards. Sources are supposed to only be accorded off-the-record status because of legitimate fears of retaliation. What did these people have to fear? It was important to call out CNN, and I would add, to call out the Warren campaign for doing this. And I don’t believe her. This is not a “me too” story. It’s a political hit story. Are you saying women politicians never lie? Only men politicians? Seriously?

      • Correction: There were some words dropped out of my previous comment. The above comment should read:

        FAIR and I didn’t “throw Warren under the bus.” FAIR exposed how CNN published a piece of trash journalism based upon four improperly anonymous sources unwilling tk have it known that they were Warren staffers….etc.

  27. I guess they’re starting to know how Trump feels. CNN took Michael Avenatti at his word that there was absolute proof that Trump had paid off “several women” to keep quiet, and that Judge Kavanaugh was a “gang rapist”. You lefties are real clowns

  28. Restore the FCC fairness doctrine. Hell, if it helps to get it passed, name it:
    The
    Regulatory
    Unbiased
    Media
    Perceptions
    Act

  29. CNN has always hated Bernie. I looked up “Why does CNN hate Bernie” on Google. There was not an answer or discussion on the question, but a page full of CNN hit pieces. They don’t even try to hide it anymore. It’s sad and at this point, a bit too obvious.

    Pull your pants up CNN, your ass is showing.

  30. Silly for me to comment not knowing what the Warren camp’s response so far has been and certainly not digging for a conflict between the two campaigns, but nevertheless, how much can the Bernie camp learn from whatever Warrens response to this smear is? Seems like she’s had her tap dancing shoes on the “progressive line” now for the past 6 months or so. Somethings gotta give soon with her and it’d be easier for the Sanders campaign to maneuver if they could better gauge where most of Warren’s influence is coming from.

    I ask under the almost certain assumption that the Bernie campaign didn’t leak this on purpose for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work with what you’ve been given. Also, this isn’t to demonize Warren wherever her loyalties lie.

  31. In the tweet above, Sanders says, “The real issue is are you on the side of workers & poor ppl, or are you on the side of big money &corporations?”

    This is extremely polarizing language, Bernie. Why is it so cut and dried for you? Black and white, us and them, good and evil…? Aren’t you supposed to be open minded? Actually, maybe not, since you represent a party that tries to control politics through lies and manipulation. Why do you have to be controlling if you’re telling the truth? Because you’re not.

    • Dan,
      Our economic system & political system are visibly being controlled for the benefit of the wealthy & corporations.

      Pointing that out doesn’t make one “polarizing”; it just indicates “honesty”.
      Why is it so cut & dried? Because over the past 40 years, things have been getting better & better for the rich, and worse & worse for the working class. No liberal needs to apologize for attempting to balance this situation out.

  32. This is an absolute lie by an uncredited source fueled on fake publicity. Not only is this slander but a complete fabrication for attention and false information. Media sources; especially lousy ones like this one will only try to further a narrative that there “independent news source” knows something that senator Sanders is hiding. I have no idea why this so called Author David Lindork is even mentioning CNN with zero affiliation! Your not fooling anyone with this senseless article sir. Always always always question the source of what your reading or watching on any platform! But honestly this was an easy spot!

  35. Let me get this straight. Warren and her staff are aggrieved at something Sanders said in 2018 and they keep quiet about it until 2020. Everyone knew Sanders was going to run again in 2020. Warren enters the race knowing she’ll be kneecapping Sanders and he’s still gracious towards her. And now this.

  36. Wow. If this isn’t disappointing. When FAIR gets it wrong, we’re really in trouble. Of course CNN entrapped these two candidates. And they both played into it despite Jane Sanders saying her camp wasn’t. It’s pretty suspect when Bernie Sanders comes swinging while Warren at first sensibly declines comment. Both should have denounced CNN instead of each other. Instead this writer goes off on Bernie Sanders being a victim which is crap. That guy knows what he’s doing and he’s no more a saint than Warren. The writer made it about Sanders, not journalism. That’s bias right there. Disappointing of FAIR.

  37. Bernie Sanders is a stooge candidate. Democrats use Bernie to prevent progressives from leaving and forming an effective 3rd party.

    Fake news agenda is to make believe the DNC puppet Bernie Sanders is a legitimate socialist. This is done with reverse psychology.

    Brazenly smearing Bernie creates the illusion that the billionaire oligarchs are afraid of him.

  38. I sent Elisabeth a donation but was undecided between her and Burnie. CNN and MSMBC have been my major sources for news. The bomb shell which was orchestrated by the Waren Campaign and assisted by CNN is such a cheap theater production I simply am overwhelmed with doubt. I am now a passionate friend to Burnie and very uncertain about CNN.

FAIR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.