FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The first thing the New York Times wants you to know about Sanders’ media criticism is that it’s wrong–because Sanders fails to appreciate the brave new media world.
As far as voters are concerned, Sanders and Clinton are exactly tied so far. It’s only when you count the intentions of superdelegates that Clinton has any sort of delegate lead, insurmountable or otherwise.
Dave Lindorff of This Can’t Be Happening! cited FAIR on New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes’ slam of Sandersnomics. Dollars & Sense also included Doug Henwood’s FAIR piece on a reading list on the controversy.
New York Observer’s diatribe, “The Cause of This Nightmare Election? Media Greed and Shameless Traffic Worship,” poses as media criticism but is little more than petulant establishment gatekeeping.
“Left-Leaning Economists Question Cost of Bernie Sanders’ Plans,” declared the New York Times. All the quoted economists have ties to the Democratic establishment, and their leftward lean would require very sensitive equipment to measure.
Presidential challenger Bernie Sanders attacked his rival Hillary Clinton live on US television for taking advice from Nixon-era Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. US television was not impressed.
The day before the New Hampshire primary, the Washington Post ran a column headlined “Bernie Sanders Is No Revolutionary”—written by Dana Milbank, that noted expert on revolutionary movements.
The things David Brooks sees in Barack Obama that he misses in Bernie Sanders are interesting—because they’re revealing of the criteria establishment media use to place politicians either inside or out of the club.
It seems the view of many in the media is that Sanders is a fringe candidate, so it’s not necessary to treat his positions with the same respect awarded the views of a Hillary Clinton or a Marco Rubio.
The people who are most enthusiastically behind Trump have real problems with real consequences; they’re not likely to forget about them because Ted Cruz had a better get-out-the-vote operation in Iowa.
Even in a piece that charts Sanders’ success in galvanizing new voters, political reporter Karen Tumulty still manages to side-eye the candidate with the observation that “Republicans are not the only voters looking for qualities beyond experience and electability.”
Brad Friedman of the BradBlog wrote up his interview with FAIR’s Jim Naureckas for his radio show the BradCast.
The dichotomy the New York Times draws between the “experienced” and “proven” candidates and presumably inexperienced, unproven outsiders doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.
The kind of question CNN’s Christopher Cuomo asked Bernie Sanders at CNN’s Iowa town meeting were quite different from the kind Cuomo asked Hillary Clinton.
Many of the outlets pushing back on single payer are owned by large media corporations with sizable investments in private healthcare and its current neoliberal iteration, the Affordable Care Act. They have not just a political and ideological incentive to maintain private healthcare, but a tremendous financial one as well.
From the New York Times, you get that the indictment of videomakers who made a deceptive video attacking Planned Parenthood might hurt Ted Cruz, What you don’t get is a sense that a woman’s control over her own child-bearing is at stake.
We should care what media are saying about single payer—as a lesson in policing possibilities, even apart from what it means for the presidential race.
It’s not surprising that the Washington Post (owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos) would be unhappy with a presidential candidate running on a platform of taking back the country from the millionaires and billionaires.
In a column published by numerous outlets, FAIR associate Norman Solomon offered FAIR’s Jim Naureckas as a rebuttal to the “escalating media assault” on Bernie Sanders.
Capitalist institutions like giant media conglomerates tend to see an aversion to socialism as normal and healthy.
