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

This is such an important article. It highlights the words of Noam Chomsky that I heard in an interview yesterday on Alternative Radio with David Barsamian and Chomsky — that Americans are "massively propagandized." (https://www.alternativeradio.org/)

Noam Chomsky was discussing threats to peace and the planet. He is among the most preeminent voices in the world. Most Europeans know him. And the vast majority of Americans do not. Why? Why is Noam Chomsky NEVER heard on ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, or other mainstream media? Because if we Americans were consistently exposed to voices like Noam Chomsky, Bernie Sanders, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Henry Giroux, Bill McKibben, and countless others who embody wisdom and truth, if this were to happen WE HERE IN AMERICA WOULD BE INFORMED. And the epidemic of dispowerment and division would undergo a profound transformation and deep paradigm shift because we would no longer be buying the lies that we are sold day in and day out. Truth is powerful!

But the reality in America is that an informed populace is something that is fought with millions of dollars pouring into our mainstream media from the most wealthy whose only concern is maintaining their power, and no matter the cost. They truly don't care who wins the next presidential election as long as that person will not threaten their power and the status quo of those who profit — profit from polarization and dehumanization, from endless wars and violence, from drill baby drill and the continued rape of our Earth, from the vast redistribution of wealth upwards amidst the suffering and death of billions in America and worldwide, from the sixth major extinction, from racial and immigrant and other minority crushing injustices, from our healthcare system of greed and profit and death, from the prison industrial complex and all that feeds ever increasing violence and desperation in American and globally, and on and on.

Sure, they'd prefer a corporate democrat over the crazy man currently occupying the White House, but they'll take Trump any day over Bernie Sanders and the movements he has activated — movements of activists who get it in our bones that much, much more is asked of us than voting alone. And these movements of today pose the greatest threat to the power of the powerful. So the forces of the most powerful are fiercely determined to take Bernie down. This includes long entrenched corporate power in both major political parties.

And anyone, including myself, who speak the truth and expose the propaganda we're immersed in is immediately silenced, dismissed, told to shut up, to stop dividing us, blamed for handing the election to Trump, accused of spreading Russian propaganda, and on and on.

It has never before been so important to speak the truth. As Noam Chomsky clearly articulated yesterday, and many other times, the climate emergency and the increasing proliferation of nuclear weapons — all coupled with the obscene amount of power in the hands of neoliberal corporate elites who are bent on maintaining that power, and no matter the cost — pose an imminent threat to all life on Earth.

Just imagine if the American mainstream media had never aligned with funding from the special interests of the most powerful. Just imagine if instead of massively propagandizing, dividing, and misinforming us that they had long been speaking the truth and informing us of the these threats. Had that happened, we NEVER would have elected Trump or anyone else who was not addressing these threats as the top priority. We would actually have a government of, by, and for the people rather than the powerful.

And this is what Bernie Sanders, and all of us who are part of these movements for justice, equality, truth, caring, and sanity, are fighting for — a government and a country and world which is devoted to the true needs and welfare of all living beings. Let's refuse to be divided and unite behind this — the dignity and rights of all children and all beings everywhere! It is time! — Molly

When the network’s primetime pundits do cover Sanders, they cover him more negatively than Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden.

BY BRANKO MARCETIC

ONCE KNOWN AS THE LONE, FORTHRIGHT VOICE OF LIBERALISM on cable news, MSNBC began a lurch to the center in 2015 with its new chairman, Andrew Lack, going on a conservative pundit hiring spree and shedding the network’s “Lean Forward” branding.

Even so, MSNBC is positioned to have an outsized influence on the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. According to the Norman Lear Center, liberals watch MSNBC at (respectively) three and 10 times the rate of more moderate and conservative viewers. After Fox News, MSNBC is the most-watched cable news network, beating out CNN. What’s more, the median age of MSNBC’s audience is 65—and older voters turn out in high numbers in primary contests.

To understand how MSNBC may be shaping the 2020 election, In These Times analyzed the network’s August and September coverage of the Democratic presidential contest’s leading candidates—Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. We focused on the network’s flagship primetime shows: The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, All In with Chris Hayes, The Beat with Ari Melber, Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and The Rachel Maddow Show.

In These Times tallied how often the three candidates were discussed and logged whether the coverage was positive, negative or neutral. For example, while poll results by themselves (whether favorable or unfavorable to a candidate) were simply logged as neutral, commentary about a candidate “surging” was logged as positive and “stagnant” as negative. Clips and previews for upcoming segments were not included.

The coverage quickly revealed a pattern. Over the two months, these six programs focused on Biden, often to the exclusion of Warren and Sanders. Sanders received not only the least total coverage (less than one-third of Biden’s), but the most negative. As to the substance, MSNBC’s reporting revolved around poll results and so-called electability.

After the 2016 presidential election, in which the press was criticized for disproportionately giving Donald Trump $2 billion of free media, MSNBC may be repeating history. While pundits get paid to have opinions, MSNBC’s seem to dwell in an alternate reality: As momentum mounts for longstanding liberal goals like single-payer health care and bold climate action, MSNBC’s coverage seems devoted, instead, to narrowing the liberal imagination.

Please continue this article here: https://inthesetimes.com/features/msnbc-bernie-sanders-coverage-democratic-primary-media-analysis.html