[rad-green] Corporate Media's Mantra Is 'Anyone But Sanders or Warren'

*https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/02/corporate-medias-mantra-anyone-sanders-or-warren
<https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/02/corporate-medias-mantra-anyone-sanders-or-warren>Common
Dreams          December 2, 2019*





*Corporate Media's Mantra Is 'Anyone But Sanders or Warren'The mainline
media are generally quite warm toward so-called "moderates," without
bothering to question what's so moderate about such positions as bowing to
corporate plunder, backing rampant militarism and refusing to seriously
confront the climate emergency.by Norman Solomon*

[image: Democratic presidential hopefuls Mayor of South Bend Pete
Buttigieg, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Former Vice President
Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders participate in the fifth
Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season
co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post at Tyler Perry Studios in
Atlanta, Georgia on November 20, 2019. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)]

*Democratic presidential hopefuls Mayor of South Bend Pete Buttigieg,
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Former Vice President Joe Biden and
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders participate in the fifth Democratic primary
debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season co-hosted by MSNBC and The
Washington Post at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, Georgia on November 20,
2019. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)*

Anyone who’s been paying attention should get the picture by now. Overall,
in subtle and sledgehammer ways, the mass media of the United States—owned
and sponsored by corporate giants—are in the midst of a siege against the
two progressive Democratic candidates who have a real chance to be elected
president in 2020.

Some of the prevalent media bias has taken the form of protracted swoons
for numerous "center lane" opponents of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren. The recent entry of Michael Bloomberg has further jammed that lane,
adding a plutocrat "worth" upwards of $50 billion to a bevy of corporate
politicians.

The mainline media are generally quite warm toward so-called "moderates,"
without bothering to question what's so moderate about such positions as
bowing to corporate plunder, backing rampant militarism and refusing to
seriously confront the climate emergency.

Critical reporting on debate performances and campaign operations has
certainly been common. But the core of the "moderate" agenda routinely gets
affirmation from elite journalists who told us in no uncertain terms four
years ago that Hillary Clinton was obviously the nominee who could defeat
Donald Trump.

This year, Sanders has taken most of the flak from reporters and pundits
(often virtually indistinguishable), serving as a kind of "heat shield" for
Warren. But as Warren gained ground in polling this fall, the attacks on
her escalated—to the point that she now has a corporate media bullseye on
her political back.

"What's at stake includes democracy—the informed consent of the
governed—and so much more."

The disconnect between voters and corporate media is often huge. Meanwhile,
with fly-on-the-wall pretenses, media outlets that have powerfully distorted
<https://www.salon.com/2019/10/18/how-the-mainstream-media-tries-to-convince-you-that-medicare-for-all-is-impossible_partner/>
proposals
like Medicare for All are now reporting (with thinly veiled satisfaction)
that voters are cool to those proposals.

*The Washington Post*, owned by one of the world's richest people Jeff
Bezos, has routinely spun Medicare for All as some sort of government
takeover. In a prominent Nov. 30 news story
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-a-fight-over-health-care-entangled-elizabeth-warren--and-reshaped-the-democratic-presidential-race/2019/11/29/40f4d30e-0bb0-11ea-97ac-a7ccc8dd1ebc_story.html?utm_campaign=evening_edition&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1>
that
largely attributed Warren's recent dip in polls to her positioning on
healthcare, the Post matter-of-factly—and falsely—referred to Medicare for
All as "government-run healthcare" and "a government-run health plan."

Such pervasive mass-media reporting smoothed the way for deceptions that
have elevated Pete Buttigieg in polls during recent weeks with his deceptive
"Medicare for All Who Want It" slogan
<https://rootsaction.org/news-a-views/2139-we-want-medicare-for-all-not-healthcare-profiteering-for-the-few>.
That rhetoric springboards from the false premises that Medicare for All
would deprive people of meaningful choice and would somehow reduce coverage.

In late September, with scant media scrutiny, Buttigieg launched an ad
campaign against Medicare for All
<https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/buttigieg-ad-medicare-for-all-iowa/index.html>
that
has continued
<https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/15/politics/pete-buttigieg-medicare-for-all-ad-elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders/index.html>.
Using insurance-industry talking points, he is deliberately confusing the
current "choice" of predatory for-profit insurance plans with the genuine
full choice of healthcare providers that top-quality Medicare for everyone
would offer.

Mainstream media outlets are ill-positioned to refute such distortions
since they're routinely purveying such distortions themselves.
Warren's backtracking
step
<https://newrepublic.com/article/155756/elizabeth-warren-retreats-medicare> on
Medicare for All in mid-November was a tribute to media pressure in tandem
with attacks from centrist opponents.

The idea of implementing some form of a substantial "wealth tax" has also
been denigrated by many corporate-employed journalists. Countless pundits
and political beat reporters have warned that proposals like a wealth tax,
from Warren and Sanders, risk dragging Democrats down with voters. The
truth is that such proposals are unpopular with the punditocracy and the
extremely wealthy—while it’s a very different matter for most voters,
who strongly
favor a wealth tax
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/29/new-poll-finds-majority-americans-across-political-spectrum-back-warrens-ultra?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3-kXyr2gGdXaM5ygFyBS-R9mckjVbiEGhg08OnwwRMo1K2c3rqFSUqylc>
.

On the same day this fall, the *New York Times* and the *Washington
Post* published
stories on Democratic elites' "anxiety" about the presidential election.
The *Post* wrote
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/anxiety-rises-among-democrats-worried-about-partys-prospects-in-2020/2019/10/22/b9c015d4-f4d9-11e9-8cf0-4cc99f74d127_story.html>
that
Democrats "fret" Warren and Sanders "are too liberal to win a general
election." (With disdain, the article made a matter-of-fact reference to
"the push for liberal purity.") The *Times* similarly wrote
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/us/politics/democratic-candidates-2020.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2F2020-election>
of
"persistent questions about Senator Elizabeth Warren's viability in the
general election." Contrary voices were absent in both news stories.

Assessing those articles, FAIR.org media analyst Julie Hollar pointed out
<https://fair.org/home/fretting-about-progressives-electability-establishment-dems-are-really-worried-about-their-power-in-the-party/>:
"The pieces interviewed a number of big donors and centrist party leaders,
who fretted about their preferred candidate's struggles and expressed hope
for someone more corporate-friendly than Warren to enter the race and
challenge her rise."

Hollar added: "The thinking of powerful people in the Democratic Party is
worth writing about. But it's crucial not to just take their claims at face
value. . . . What establishment Democrats are really worried about, of
course, is their own power in the party, which is threatened by a surging
left wing. Don't look to their establishment media counterparts to report
on that transparently."

Part of the problem is the TV network that many Democrats (mistakenly)
trust. MSNBC is becoming notorious for its hostility to Bernie Sanders,
often expressed through egregious omission
<https://inthesetimes.com/features/msnbc-bernie-sanders-coverage-democratic-primary-media-analysis.html>
or
mathematical fib
<https://fair.org/home/msnbcs-anti-sanders-bias-makes-it-forget-how-to-do-math/>
if
not direct antipathy
<https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-releases-ad-featuring-msnbc-analyst-who-said-he-made-her-skin-crawl/>
.

Ongoing media analysis is crucial, but even more important is activist
pushback against the 24/7 onslaught of corporate-minded propaganda, often
couched as common sense and incontrovertible reality. Among the needed
counterpunches are these:

   - Support progressive media outlets as they provide independent coverage
   of the presidential campaign
   - Widely share, via email forwarding and social media, online pieces
   that you like. (Hopefully including this one.)
   - Recognize, challenge
   <https://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=13780>,
   and organize against the corporate-media echo chamber that affects so many
   voters

You shouldn't have to be an active supporter of Bernie Sanders (as I am) or
of Elizabeth Warren to voice outrage about corporate media biases. What's
at stake includes democracy—the informed consent of the governed—and so
much more.

History is unfolding in real time. It's not a product on the media shelf,
to be passively bought and consumed. As Bernie 2020 campaign co-chair Nina
Turner says, "All that we love is on the line
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/30/all-we-love-line-progressive-coalition-offers-moral-case-and-action-plan-win>
."
[image: Norman Solomon] <https://www.commondreams.org/author/norman-solomon>

Norman Solomon <https://www.commondreams.org/author/norman-solomon> is
co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org
<http://rootsaction.org/>. His books include *"War Made Easy: How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047179001X?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20>"*
 and *"Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0977825345?ie=UTF8&tag=commondreams-20>."* He
is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

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