Friday, December 6, 2019

'He's Just...Erased': PBS 2020 Segment Finds Time for Klobuchar, Sestak, and Bullock—But Completely Ignores Bernie Sanders

This makes me feel sick and also mad as hell. And I’m totally not surprised at all.
There are so many reasons why I don’t support PBS/NPR — and especially because of their utter failure to even approach adequately covering the climate crisis (repeatedly interviewing people in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry rather than climate scientists, Dahr Jamail, Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, and others who would inform us of the critical information that is vital for us to know), and also this coupled with the insidious blackout of the one presidential candidate whose plan and allocated funding matches the enormity of the climate emergency.
This is truly the darkest of the dark — doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry, Wall Street, the military industrial complex, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and other powerful financial interests instead of divesting and doing their job — which is to be grounded in integrity and going to where the silence is, refusing to be mouthpieces for the powerful, empowering us to be an informed rather than propagandized populace, and embodying a profound commitment to truth.
Again and again I’m moved to share this piece that I wrote several months ago — http://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/…/my-letter-to-npr-and…
I’m just so angry. Their corporate alliances contribute to the great crises of our times. And this brings home how incredibly important it is for us all to assume responsibility for choosing independent media resources for our information, and also for speaking the truth and exposing the lies again and again and again. — Molly

 

A Monday night PBS NewsHour segment on the state of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary highlighted Sen. Amy Klobuchar's new ad campaign in Iowa, the departure of marginal candidates Steve Bullock and Joe Sestak, a tender campaign moment with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden's "No Malarkey" bus tour—but did not once even mention Sen. Bernie Sanders despite recent key endorsements and a surge in the polls.
Sanders' presidential campaign has repeatedly accused the corporate media of ignoring the senator from Vermont, a phenomenon Sanders supporters have dubbed the "Bernie blackout."
The PBS segment, led by NewsHour correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, offered "a real taste of what Bernie is talking about," Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson wrote Tuesday.
"Remember that Sanders has been #1 in two out of three recent New Hampshire polls, and is currently second in Iowa, ahead of 'frontrunner' Joe Biden," Robinson noted. "Alcindor found time to talk about Joe Sestak and Steve Bullock, plus plenty of candidates struggling to get out of single-digit poll numbers. And yet: not even a photo of Bernie Sanders. Incredible. He's just... erased. He's gone. Bernie who?"
Robinson described the NewsHour segment as an example of "manufacturing consent in action."

No comments:

Post a Comment