The biggest loser from last night’s Democratic debate (1/14/20) was CNN’s journalistic credibility.
CNN debates have been marked by a tendency to pit one candidate against another, American Gladiators–style (FAIR.org, 8/2/19), so it’s no surprise that the cable network took its own journalistically dubious “scoop” (CNN, 1/13/20)—about Bernie Sanders allegedly telling Elizabeth Warren in 2018 that “he did not believe a woman could win” a race against Donald Trump—and used it as the basis of questions to both Sanders and Warren at its pre–Iowa caucus debate in Des Moines (presented jointly with the Des Moines Register).
CNN‘s questioning assumed that Elizabeth Warren was telling the truth and Bernie Sanders was lying about a conversation they had more than a year ago.
But it was less predictable that CNN would frame those questions in such a nakedly one-sided manner, with wording that presumed that the truth was known about what was really said in a disputed, year-old private conversation. “Senator Sanders,” began CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip:
Senator Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?
Phillip obviously knew that Sanders had unequivocally stated that he had not said that. But by inserting the word “confirmed” into the preface, she put Sanders in the position of someone denying reality—despite the fact that his alleged remark would contradict his public position going back 30 years. And immediately after getting Sanders to reiterate his statement that he never told Warren that a woman couldn’t win the election, Philip turned to Warren and asked: “Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?”—a question premised on the assumption that Sanders had just lied about what he had said.
CNN asked both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders if Sanders should explain how much his healthcare plan will cost.
CNN‘s healthcare questions were also nakedly one-sided. In the first debate the network hosted (7/30/19), Jake Tapper started off the night by asking Sanders whether “tak[ing] private health insurance away from more than 150 million Americans, in exchange for government-sponsored healthcare for everyone,” was “political suicide,” and went on to focus on the cost of Medicare for All (FAIR.org, 8/2/19). Last night, Phillip’s first question on healthcare likewise went to Sanders, revisiting that focus on cost:
Senator Sanders, you have consistently refused to say exactly how much your Medicare for All plan is going to cost. Don’t voters deserve to see the price tag before you send them a bill that could cost tens of trillions of dollars?
After Sanders explained that Medicare for All “will cost substantially less than the status quo”—under which healthcare is projected to cost $52 trillion over the next decade—Phillip turned to Biden. But instead of asking him to answer any criticisms of his own plan, she offered him the same Sanders-bashing frame: “Vice President Biden, does Senator Sanders owe voters a price tag on his healthcare plan?”
While Phillip gave every other candidate a chance to weigh in, she didn’t give them substantive questions. She then returned to Sanders with another question about the cost of his plans:
Senator Sanders, your campaign proposals would double federal spending over the next decade, an unprecedented level of spending not seen since World War II. How would you keep your plans from bankrupting the country?
Wolf Blitzer tried to turn Ayatollah Khamenei into Bernie Sanders’ running mate.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer led off a series of foreign policy questions with a similarly loaded question for Sanders:
Sen. Sanders, in the wake of the Iran crisis, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei has again called for all US troops to be pulled out of the Middle East, something you’ve called for as well. Yet when American troops last left Iraq, ISIS emerged and spread terror across the Middle East and, indeed, around the world. How would you prevent that from happening again?
So Sanders was asked to defend his policy—identified as being the same as that of a hated official enemy—against the charge that it would “spread terror…around the world.” (Blitzer’s blaming ISIS on the withdrawal from Iraq evades the reality that there would never have been an ISIS were it not for the Iraq invasion.)
Rather than giving similarly poison-tipped questions to Sanders’ rivals, Blitzer went on for the most part to merely ask them to respond to what had already been said: “Vice President Biden?… Senator Klobuchar, what’s your response?… Mayor Buttigieg, you served in Afghanistan. Who’s right?” Politico’s Ryan Lizza (1/15/20) referred to this as Blitzer doing “an admirable job teasing out some of the subtle differences that have crystallized among Democrats in the post-Obama world.”
Elizabeth Warren was also painted as a bearer of fringe ideas that “will scare away swing voters.”
It’s important to remember that CNN’s blatant insertion of its own point of view into the presidential debate doesn’t reflect a mere personal dislike of Sanders, but rather a consistent ideological orientation. Warren, despite being used as a blunt object with which to bash Sanders, was also given questions that likewise painted her as a champion of way-out ideas, as with this from Phillip:
Why does it make sense for the government to manufacture drugs, especially when public trust in government is near historic lows?
Of course, it wouldn’t be elected officials making the drugs, but government agencies—and it’s the former and not the latter who are generally distrusted by the public (Pew, 9/6/19). The drug industry, meanwhile, is the least trusted of all major industrial sectors (Gallup, 9/3/19)—but why spoil the premise of a good “gotcha” question?
When Phillip asked a series of questions that were supposed to highlight the “unique challenges” each candidate faced in “prov[ing] to Democratic voters that you’re strong enough to take on Donald Trump,” Sanders was told that “more than two-thirds of voters say they are not enthusiastic about voting for a socialist,” while Warren was told that voters are worried her policies “will scare away swing voters you need to win this race in November.”
CNN to Amy Klobuchar: Please explain how the word you have chosen as your campaign brand will go over with voters.
Phillip’s question to centrist darling Amy Klobuchar, by contrast, was set up with the senator’s self-description as “a practical candidate who can get things done,” and the observation that she’s “dismissed some of the ideas that are offered in this primary as pipe dreams”; in other words, she’s taken the same position on issues like Medicare for All that’s been consistently advanced by media monitors. That led up to this aren’t-you-really-too-conscientious? softball: “How are you going to inspire Democratic voters with a message of pragmatism?”
Her question to Biden didn’t even rise to that level of challenge:
Vice President Biden, the eventual nominee will face President Trump, who has no problem mocking people, using insulting nicknames, slinging mud and telling lies. The debate against him will make tonight’s debate look like child’s play. Are you prepared for that?
The question to Buttigieg in this segment of the debate was the only one that brought up race in a debate that was notable as the first with an all-white cast of candidates, following the withdrawal of Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julián Castro, and the exclusion of Andrew Yang for not meeting polling thresholds. Race wasn’t raised at all in the questions in the last debate CNN ran (10/15/19), in conjunction with the New York Times (FAIR.org, 10/17/19). In the lone reference to race in the Iowa questioning, people of color appeared merely as a desirable voting bloc: “You’ve had trouble earning the support of black voters…support that you’ll need in order to beat Donald Trump.”
The complacent worldview behind CNN’s questioning was summed up by Rolling Stone (1/15/20):
In an era of endless war abroad, painfully and often prohibitively expensive healthcare and education at home, and a climate crisis that threatens to make the planet inhospitable to its 7 billion human inhabitants, the challenges of change were treated as paramount or even insurmountable, while the costs of maintaining the status quo barely mentioned.
When Sanders tried to explain how NAFTA 2.0 failed to address the climate crisis, the moderator declared that off limits: “We’re going to get to climate change, but I’d like to stay on trade.”
That attitude was nowhere more on view than in the debate’s approach to the issue of climate. When Sanders was asked by Des Moines Register political correspondent Brianne Pfannenstiel why he opposes Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA treaty, despite its endorsement by the AFL-CIO—“Are you unwilling to compromise?”—he pointed out that
every major environmental organization has said no to this new trade agreement because it does not even have the phrase “climate change” in it. And given the fact that climate change is right now the greatest threat facing this planet, I will not vote for a trade agreement that does not incorporate very, very strong principles to significantly lower fossil fuel emissions in the world.
But Pfannenstiel would not stand for having the serious business of trade agreements mixed up with trivia about threats to the planet: “We’re going to get to climate change, but I’d like to stay on trade.”
Much later, when the topic did return to climate, suitably divorced from any other subject, it was with this inane question:
Mayor Buttigieg, you have talked about helping people move from areas at high risk of flooding. But what do you do about farms and factories that simply can’t be moved?
One really does get the impression that if CNN were holding a debate on the Titanic, the first question would literally be about rearranging the deck chairs.
ACTION ALERT: 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.
Senator Warren “confirmed” a statement that she herself had previously conveyed to CNN anonymously through her campaign workers.”
In other words, a Moebius confirmation.
Ha ha ha.
CNN had no reputation to lose.
It’s a clown show, with Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer and Abby Phillip the clowns.
that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?
Warren said in the debate “look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised and it’s time for us to attack it head on.”
“Has been raised ” ?
Yeah, it’s been raised, by Warren herself!!
Another Moebius self reference!
Ha ha ha.
I’m sorry, but I think the biggest loser in this whole sorry affair is Warren, even though she seems to believe she remains hidden behind her “anonymous” sources and all.
The Wizard of Oz comes to mind.
Warren has made a serious (perhaps fatal) miscalculation by assuming that people would just take her word for it over Bernie’s
MSNBC commentator Mika Brzezinski
“I don’t know what happened there, but somebody’s not telling the truth, and I have a bad feeling it might be the accuser”
The credibility problem is not Bernie’s.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/01/the-credibility-gap
You all have nailed it.
“Senator Sanders, when did you stop beating your wife”? – CNN
You ‘beat’ me to it enai – I was about to say the exact same thing! Talk about rhetorical questions… I would suspect a high-school debater would lose a lot of points for posing such blatantly, simplistically biased questions to an OPPONENT, much less a purported ‘moderator’ doing it.
The entire planet’s populace lost last night’s hilarious cage-match infomercial for smug kleptocracy. Despite the comical transparency of Warren’s duplicitous collusion, folks are in denial that this not particularly convincing theatrical diversion is simply another mind numbing sequel. The API, PhARMA, FIRE Sector, AIPAC, Atlantic Council, Bayer and billionaire’s around the world aren’t going to let voters have any say in our… now, how did Mellon put it? Liquidation?
CNN: Senator Sanders, have you ever punted a child into a trashcan?
Sanders. : No, I have not.
CNN: Senator Warren, how did you feel when Senator Sanders punted a child into a trashcan?
Pretty much exactly what happened. Warren and Sanders are offering differing accounts of a private meeting, so CNN just assumes Warren’s account is correct, based on… nothing whatsoever.
Which is particularly ludicrous when we recall that ONE of these candidates has a history/pattern of dishonesty and the other doesn’t- Bernie did not claim that his kids went to public school when in reality they were privately schooled (that was Warren), Bernie did not lie about native American heritage for many years (again, Warren), Bernie did not waffle on his policy platform as Warren has done RE PAC money and M4A (yep, Warren).
I kicked CNN off my news feeds for this FOX “News” level garbage. I suggest you do the same. Hell, it’s even below FOX, as they let Bernie talk in a townhall setting.
seems to me that its very much time for Bernie and anyone else in a position to say on camera; that CNN as well as MSNBC and PBS are BIASED. It needs to said on air and plainly for everyone to hear. Put them on their heels and try to defend their obvious bias.
It was pathetic. I hope the Sanders campaign is giving serious consideration to refusing to attend any more CNN debates, whether primary or general if they get the nom. (and if Trump decides to attend)
In an ideal world all candidates would’ve boycotted all debates soon after the League of Women Voter’s lost them. They’re an absolute joke. And also hypocritical, for people who complain about other countries’ terrible electoral systems. Ours is certainly among the worst and the media is a big part.
Remember, CNN jumping at Poppy Bush’s restrictions, after evil Iraqis tore Kuwaiti babies from incubators. You could get inbedded with our glorious freedom coalition or… just be more collateral damage, amidst precision guided munitions (cluster bombs & 70 uranium slugs/ second). The notion that, either rip & read PR handouts predated Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley by 300K years, but CNN made our Imperialism a virtual reality infomercial video game, 24/7/365 (and only the dangerous, dissident journalists died).
Good article. About the 50th I’ve seen that agrees that CNN was the real loser in this last debate. I was amazed at all the mainstream protest…from Rolling Stone, The Intercept, The Nation, The New Republic, HuffPost, Common Dreams, etc., not to mention the countless individuals remarking on the CNN debacle. I have yet to see one comment supporting Warren on this and I’m guessing she has lost a number of supporters who were vacillating between the top two progressives.
One thing that got missed was how CNN made it fairly easy for Biden as they fomented the challenges to Warren and especially Sanders for their actual issues stances, which Biden sorely lacks. CNN would like for Warren to pull enough votes from Sanders to deactivate both progressives and slam-dunk a Biden nomination.
At some point, viewers are going to have to insist that Biden go under the gun more rigorously during these debates.
The “slant” on your article is that of a “Bernie-bot.” The Bernie bots, in 2016, refused to vote for Hillary and they had some justification on their side, after the revelation that Debbie Wasserman Schulz (then head of the DNC) had been trying to stack the deck in HRC’s favor. However, Hilary was now the candidate and I know way too many Bernie bots who refused to vote at all or wrote in Bernie’s name (some with Tulsi Gabbard as VP!). I’m from Iowa. I thought the questions were the best so far, because it brought up things like the effect of Health Care for All on insurance towns like Des Moines. Bernie helped bring down Hillary in 2016. He is revolution. The Dems face a choice (as Axelrod said) between revolution or evolution (i.e., more gradual change). The best-known candidate is Biden. Bernie also recently had a heart attack (News Flash!) and is 78. (I’m hoping that Biden has the good sense to select a much younger running mate who is also a centrist: Klobuchar? Booker? No idea). As I read your piece, I found it to clearly signal that the writer is put out that Bernie got hard questions, because they want Bernie to win. If he does (get the nomination) he can simply show up with a cross and hammer and nails. The GOP will crucify his socialist agenda, his time in Israel, etc. I hope that Bernie will get behind whomever becomes the nominee, and I honestly don’t think he has a snowball’s chance in the hot place of unseating Trump, so we need to look elsewhere. I, by the way, have covered every presidential race since 2004, wrote 2 books on the 2008 race (“Obama’s Odyssey: The 2008 Race for the White House,” Vols. I and II) and was named Yahoo’s Content Producer of that Year for Politics.)
Ok Boomer
As a boomer myself I take exception to the youth of today…. I forget what I was going to say next but I’m sure it was important.
Sanders matches up the best against Trump because all of Sanders’ supposed weaknesses (too senile, too male, too white, too radical, too repetitive, too loud, too angry, too pro-gun, too anti-establishment, too anti-trade, solutions too simplistic and sloganeering, supporters too aggressive) apply doubly or trebly to Trump. Plus, Sanders is scandal free, and Sanders can actually honestly run his campaign as the legitimate (rather than con artist) outsider reformer of our clearly corrupt insider establishment, which robs Trump of one of his biggest electoral assets against all of the other contenders for the Democratic nomination.
Every criticism against Sanders applies doubly to Trump, so he leaves Trump no avenue of attacking. And once currently unengaged citizens realize that they have an opportunity to vote for a politician with the unique approach of actually fighting to better their lives, there will be a groundswell of new voter support for Sanders.
Sanders has not premised his campaign on Russiagate and Ukrainegate as Biden and all other establishment Democrats have, so Trump cannot muddy the waters by making the 2020 election about Trump’s abuses of power that do not affect the lives of average Americans.
Voters of all political persuasions have had it up to here with establishment politicians of both parties. Sanders is the only candidate who can legitimately attack Trump for serving the interests of the wealthy, completely out-of-touch, plutocratic donor class of both party establishments. When Trump tries to says, “The establishment hates me because I fight for you” in an election against Sanders, almost everyone who might have fallen for that line were the election against Biden will realize how laughable this claim is against Sanders. If instead Trump were to say, “The establishment hates me because I fight for you and against their corruption” in an election against Biden (and you know Trump would definitely do this), his spin becomes much harder to dispute.
Bernie’s justly righteous anger against our corrupt corporate and political establishment would play very well in a general election against Trump, in my humble opinion. I want our Democratic candidate to get into a shouting match for a change. There are millions of American males who continually vote for whichever candidate yells the loudest, err, “projects the most strength.” Sanders does extremely well with independent voters, and especially white male independent voters. That’s how he always manages to carry rural Vermont, and that’s why he trounced Clinton in both West Virginia and Wisconsin in the 2016 primaries.
Sanders’ supporters want to beat Trump far more than the establishment wing of the Democratic party does. Sanders’ supporters are contributing millions upon millions of tiny individual donations to Sanders’ long shot campaign, breaking all previous campaign records. ActBlue is basically God’s gift to the Democratic party and you can thank Sanders’ supporters for that.
Sanders’ campaign has the most volunteers. Sanders’ campaign has all the energy. Sanders’ campaign has all young and new voters. Sanders’ campaign has won the social media battle for the Democrats. Sanders’ campaign is registering all the new Democratic voters. Sanders’ campaign is the only campaign that is currently actively trying to involve millions of previously disaffected Democratic voters in their electoral system.
When turnout is high, Democrats always win, and Bernie Sanders gives Americans a candidate to vote FOR for a change.
Well said!
It’s really dismissive to refer to Sander’s supporters as bots as he has a larger grass-roots movement than any other person in the race by far. I also don’t understand how you could call Biden an evolution of the Democratic party when he is literally running as a rehash of the Obama presidency and closely resembles the same centrist Clinton nomination that lost to Trump in 2016. Because of the Never-Trump movement, the Democratic voter base has just been written off as a monolith, that they will all vote blue no matter the candidate because Trump is worse. However, in light of the blatant favoritism shown in 2016 by the DNC and mainstream media during even this election (illustrated last night), why should his supporters reward this kind of behavior? It’s really telling that the coverage Sanders gets on Fox and even from Trump himself has been less pointed and biased than CNN and other, purportedly liberal media outlets. As noted in this article, there was a clear difference in the tone of the questions posed to Sanders, not to mention when Abby Phillip took the sexism allegation as a fact when Sanders had literally just made a extended argument to refute it. Lastly, you can say Sanders has no chance, but that’s what they said about Trump in last election’s Republican nomination process, and furthermore, against Hillary in the general election, and we all know how that turned out.
In other words, you don’t actually have any substantive basis to dispute anything about the article, but you wish to register your displeasure at them for having written it nevertheless. Um, okay, thanks for this extremely meaningful (lol) contribution to the discussion.
My response to CNN:
How can anyone take CNN seriously when it so blatantly attacks America’s most trusted and liked politician, using the shoddiest reporting next to FOX to manufacture and promote division at such a critical time in our country? You have done what I thought was impossible–made Trump seem reasonable by calling you “fake news”. Shame.
CNN use to be a reliable source of information about world until Ted Turner owned it but now it’s a shit show, it use to be Cable Network News but now it is Commercial Network News where 2 minutes bullshit news and 10 minutes commercials especially during the the Situation room of Mr Blitzer is worse.
You guys lock it down, I can send you locks if you cannot afford because I don’t watch you anymore. It’s Hillary’s network she was corrupt, she’s corrupt and she’ll always a corrupt woman (a Republican warmonger corporate bitch among Democrats).
Bernie was my guy in 2016 and he’s my guy in 2020 all the way.
Warren disgustingly aligns with the corporate media tools, recruits identity politics in a desperate effort to beat Bernie
https://failedevolution.blogspot.com/2020/01/warren-disgustingly-aligns-with.html
Exactly. CNN was so excruciatingly bad that I finally agreed with something Trump said. Unconscionable “journalistic” malpractice.
I too agree with Trump about CNN (and probably nothing else), but it’s much worse than just fake.
It’s “weaponized fake news” : NMD (news of mass destruction)
CNNs President Jeff Zucker is a propagandist of the Goebbels class.
Thanks for this review. CNN’s handling of the debate pissed us off so much that we changed channel. Also could not stand those smooth faced anchors cutting people off all the time before they were finished with their “Thank you Ms/Mr x”
Thanks for the analysis. It seems you left out congresswoman Gabbard from this sentence: “… following the withdrawal of Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julián Castro, and the exclusion of Andrew Yang for not meeting polling thresholds.”
Dismissive denigration, denial and duplicitous deception is how yuppies deal with dissident “deplorables?” They’ve got a good thing going, blaming Trump for lining their pockets by liquidating the lower classes’ homes, equity, businesses; usurious indentiture over EZ Credit car, student and surprise medical debt. Somebody had to shut Sanders up, before the primaries (as MSDNC, CNN & NPR fed 20+ slavering kleptocrats the typical cacophony of K Street talking points, avoiding each and every issue critical to former Democrats. Deaths O’ Disparity, where the 9.9% Creative Class™ blame their victims for dying from delayed diagnosed disease, disability and dispair. Where deputies take your house, car or freedom over ER trip sticker shock. CNN & the DNC™ LLC have one product: US? One tool: our subliminal conditioned duplicity?
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3a8bd9/opioid-crisis-death-toll-twice-as-high
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/january-democratic-debate-2020-cnn-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-938365/
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/15/cnnistrash-trends-as-pushback-grows-against-oligarchic-election-meddling
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rumble-with-michael-moore/id1490354763?i=1000462570751
As clearly demonstrated by the last non-debate, the US electoral process has become a scripted farce, faithfully but poorly acted out by both political parties and narrated by mainstream corporate media, with the singular goal of maintaining the continued flow of money and power into the hands and pockets of the people who really run the country. Frank Zappa said it best: “Politics is the Entertainment Division of the Military Industrial Complex”, and the show will go on until the voters refuse to be herded around like extras and stop buying tickets with their tax dollars.
CNN is utter garbage. We have cancelled our cable-tv and use streaming services only. We are a CNN free home. People need to stand up and send a message.
So damn glad my family and I stopped watching CNN! Why the Hell did CNN attack Bernie Sanders that way?! Why!?
By the way my family and I NEVER watch “garbage” on Fox News.
I am happily biased to Amy K. If substantive Q’s are asked her answers are consistent and in the “real world” arena. Hopefully she still has traction to continue
FAIR is still around? Hard to believe.
MSNBC just had a “body language expert” on who claimed Sanders lied cuz he “turtled” he shoulders.
Turtles are liars?
Who knew?
Thanks to the American mainstream news media, we learn something new and important every day.
CNN never had any credibility. They proved that when Newt Gingrich got into power in1994. No self-respecting progressive would ever go on that network. They are way worse than Fox News.
Has anyone tracked/established/confirmed the actual chain of events that connect this 2018 Sanders/Warren meeting with CNN reporter Lee’s publication of her pathetic pseudo-scoop? Like to see it.
I think we have every reason — if we follow the “who benefits most” line of reasoning — to assume that “reporter” (hah) Lee or someone at CNN had this “she-said” for quite a while, and then — independent of, or complementary to, their biased get-Bernie “moderation” — the CNN “editors” (hah again) just strategically released it on the heels of the des moines debate, to please JZ & jack the ratings of “their” debate. Debate ratings had been sucking and trending downward. And, I mean, watch Jeff Zucker’s execrable moment in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9, where he revealingly fails miserably to answer when asked (in 2016) whether the network’s coverage of Trump’s campaign was based on its being deemed newsworthy, or was it a ratings grab. “Uh …. uh …….” says JZ, as the crowd laughs ominously. CNN is now a reality show with the same ethics — show me the $$$
I just want to take a moment to thank FAIR and the other news outlets for their reporting. If I had a lamp and three wishes at this moment, my three wishes might go something like this. 1) I wish corporate media read what FAIR, Common Dreams, Matt Taibbi and so many others have written and actually take what they read to heart. 2) I wish more people knew about these wonderful news organizations and cared enough to inform themselves rather than blindly swallowing the opiate of the masses. 3) I wish people would allow themselves open minds, so that none of my wishes were necessary to begin with. I know what I wish is naïve at best, and that bridging the divides in America, whether it is between Democrats and Republicans, or even Progressives and Neo-Liberals is not something that can be easily done, but I will hold out hope… Even as I remember the old saying, “Wish in one hand and sh*t in the other, see which one fills up faster.” I didn’t mean to get all pessimistic there, really just wanted to thank you for not repeating the BS spinning the 24 hour news cycles. So, thank you.
cnn has no shame. just like trump the trimp. media whores don’t realize they are being influenced by trump’s tactics with little concern for their credibility.
Posted: January 16, 2020 in – Tags: Bernie Sanders, bias, cnn, debate, Elizabeth Warren, fake news, Lies, smears