Article Analysis: the Bernie Blackout is Very Real

Editor's note: this article originally appeared November 19th, 2019 on my Facebook page - if you're looking for source materials, check out the comments section of the original article. For my latest book review "Why You Should Read Thomas Frank", please click here.

MSNBC Is the Most Influential Network Among Liberals: And It’s Ignoring Bernie Sanders

In today's edition of our ongoing article analysis feature, we're going to take a look at what I personally feel may be the most important piece of political media analysis released so far in the 2020 Democratic Party nomination cycle.

Throughout this nomination contest and the last Democratic Party primary season in 2016, supporters of the Democratic Socialist Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders have argued that mainstream corporate media in America has not only purposely avoided covering the Sanders campaign but what coverage they have offered has been dishonest, disingenuous and highly slanted towards negative (and often erroneous) conclusions about Bernie, his supporters and his campaign.

Well, if this November 13th, 2019 article about MSNBC's Democratic Party primary coverage by Branko Marcetic over at In These Times is indicative of the larger industry, it's now empirically possible to say Sanders supporters are *right* about the #BernieBlackout and it is instead the establishment media minions who called their complaints a "conspiracy theory" who now have some explaining to do.

Drawing on the tradition of extremely granular media analysis popularized by books like Manufacturing Consent and to a lesser degree, data science websites like FiveThirtyEight, Marcetic conducts a detailed examination of extremely blatant biases in MSNBC's coverage of the three leading Democratic Party nomination candidates in August and September across the network's top six prime time political shows; those three candidates of course being Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

As will likely come as no surprise to astute political media observers in America, it turns out that not only do MSNBC's top political analysts talk about Bernie Sanders less than Elizabeth Warren and far less than Joe Biden, but also that coverage of Bernie Sanders on MSNBC's flagship shows is far more likely to be negative than that of the other two candidates - which is pretty remarkable when you realize that one of the two months In These Times looked at featured a very real Joe and Hunter Biden corruption scandal that ties into the ongoing Trump impeachment and has itself driven an infinite number of whackjob Republican-endorsed conspiracy theories in what passes for the "mainstream" right wing media these days.

What really separates Marcetic's analysis in this article from the work of "data guys" like Nate Silver however, is his deep drilling into the specifics of MSNBC's coverage above and beyond the raw numbers to examine precisely *what* the network is saying about each of the three candidates, and the picture is not pretty. Far from a mere bias against Sanders, these clip by clip and argument by argument examples demonstrate that as a whole MSNBC's flagship political shows, their hosts and the vast majority of their guest pundits are actively campaigning against Bernie Sanders. Of course while that conclusion may not come as much of a shock to American leftists, it bears noting here that just a few months ago virtually every corporate media outlet in America accused the Sanders campaign of propagating Trumpian conspiracy theories when the Senator from Vermont had the audacity to suggest he and his supporters weren't getting a fair shake in the mainstream "liberal" media.

With meticulous attention to detail, Marcetic has logged numerous smears, misrepresentations and at times, even outright falsehoods disseminated in the network's war against Bernie, all the while pointing out key gaps in the coverage of any news events that could be perceived as somehow positive for the Sanders campaign. Perhaps even more alarmingly, this In These Times investigation clearly demonstrates that in MSNBC's quest to shut out Sanders and draw Liz Warren to the center, the network has largely abandoned coverage of policy proposals, agenda statements or action plans presented by literally *any* of the candidates whatsoever - as far as the network is concerned, this election is about an endless wave of breaking primary polls and while they're happy to inform you that Liz Warren "has a plan for that" they apparently have no intention of telling you what that plan might be.

The simple truth is that this is the "16 negative articles about Bernie Sanders in 16 hours on the Washington Post webpage" of the 2020 nomination cycle and unfortunately it appears to have slipped under the radar because mainstream media has no interest in sharing coverage from a nominally left wing media organization like In These Times.

Naturally there will be those who complain about the narrow scope of the study, and point to what they feel is "equally slanted" coverage in left wing publications like Jacobin, or Current Affairs but as Marcetic's data demonstrates, these people are being largely disingenuous. The numbers don't lie and MSNBC not only has a dominant hold on the liberal cable news market, but the network is particularly influential with age sixty-five and older viewers who are far more likely to vote in primaries than any other age demographic.

Due to its size and ubiquity in the public discourse, MSNBC is driving national opinions about the 2020 Democratic Party nomination contest on a scale that dwarfs every outlet the American left has to access that same discourse - and the network is openly and demonstrably driving those opinions against Bernie Sanders. Try to keep that in mind the next time Chris Mathews wants to lecture you on the need to respect your elders in the party or Larry O'Donnell has opinions to share on the importance of a "free and *fair* press."

As even famous American author Ernest Hemingway eventually learned while trying to avoid relentless CIA harassment during his retirement in Cuba - it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

- nina Illingworth



Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog.

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