Why has Warren—who has positioned herself as Bernie Sanders’ closest ideological competitor, and a vocal crusader against corporate control over the political system—so far escaped the scathing and skeptical coverage Sanders has received? The answer has to do with both the differences in how the two candidates frame themselves, and the way major media cover elections..... Sanders has helped shift the center of the party so much in recent years—many see Warren as a more acceptable alternative. Even Third Way, the pro-corporate think tank that in 2013 warned in the Wall Street Journal (12/2/13) that Warren was leading Democrats “off a populist cliff,” has warmed up a bit to her.... Warren has been working hard to convince she “is a team player who is seeking to lead the party—not stage a hostile takeover of it.” By reassuring the kind of party insiders the media rely heavily on for framing their stories, Warren has largely avoided the kinds of aspersions—often anonymous—lobbed at Sanders. .... Fairness and Accuracy in ReportingIn every long form interview Bernie has done he comes across so well, whether it is with center/right Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-iLk1G_ng which elicited this comment:
or this past weekend which I caught a bit of. Bernie makes the connections others don't.I was uncertain on Bernie to be honest and after this video and reading up on him, I can not believe he is so grossly misrepresented in the media.
Listen to Bernie in real conversations not in sound bites.
It is funny to hear Trump and the right shout fake news when people on the left have been claiming media bias against the left for well over a century.
The Washington Post is owned by the richest man in America - think he isn't threatened by Bernie? and probably Warren too, but with Biden so weak they may look at her as "controllable." And the NYT assigned Bernie coverage to Sydney Ember, formerly in the financial field and notably anti-Bernie.
FAIR took a look at the issue:
What Media Like Best About Elizabeth Warren: She’s Not Bernie Sanders
view post on FAIR.org
by Julie Hollar
When the Washington Post‘s Paul Waldman (9/18/19) recently attempted to explain Elizabeth Warren’s rise in the Democratic primary polls, he attributed it in part to media:Reporters on the campaign trail have said for some time that she is the one who generates the most enthusiastic response among voters on the ground. A rise in her poll standing inevitably produces stories about what she’s doing right, stories that get filled with the impressions those reporters have accumulated.The resulting positive news coverage encourages more Democrats to feel favorably toward her, or at the very least give her a careful look. Which leads to poll numbers that continue to improve, which leads to more positive press coverage, and the cycle goes on.
It’s a logical path from enthusiastic crowds and rising poll
numbers to news coverage about what a candidate is doing right. But it’s
certainly not an inevitable one; media coverage is a product of
editorial decisions, not laws of nature. And four years ago, when
another Democratic primary candidate was drawing enthusiastic crowds and
rising in the polls, it prompted a very different kind of coverage
(e.g., FAIR.org, 7/1/15, 8/20/15, 8/21/15).
Why has Warren—who has positioned herself as Bernie Sanders’
closest ideological competitor, and a vocal crusader against corporate
control over the political system—so far escaped the scathing and
skeptical coverage Sanders has received? The answer has to do with both
the differences in how the two candidates frame themselves, and the way
major media cover elections.
Politico (6/19/19) reports that Warren’s “Democratic capitalist narrative” is “resonating with prominent moderate voices.”
As FAIR has shown over and over, corporate journalists’ rolodexes
skew heavily toward establishment sources: party officials, strategists
and operatives (Extra!, 7–8/14; FAIR.org, 6/1/17), and centrist and right-leaning think tank analysts (FAIR.org, 7/1/13).
Those sources are almost uniformly and vehemently anti-Sanders, and
have been at least since his run against Hillary Clinton in the last
election provoked their deepest antipathy (FAIR.org, 6/28/19, 8/15/19).
But—no doubt in part because Sanders has helped shift the center of the
party so much in recent years—many see Warren as a more acceptable
alternative.
Even Third Way, the pro-corporate think tank that in 2013 warned in the Wall Street Journal (12/2/13) that Warren was leading Democrats “off a populist cliff,” has warmed up a bit to her (Politico, 6/19/19). Politico quoted
an attendee at a Third Way conference—who says he likes Warren’s
consumer protection policies and infrastructure plan—describing the
shift: “People are taking a second look at her and saying, ‘Hmm. Some of
her policies are good. Maybe she isn’t like Bernie.’”
“She isn’t like Bernie” seems to be the take thus far of much of the Democratic establishment, which, as the New York Times (8/26/19)
reported recently, Warren has been working hard to convince she “is a
team player who is seeking to lead the party—not stage a hostile
takeover of it.”
The Washington Post (6/24/19) contrasts the “impassioned but reasonable” Warren with Sanders, “the ideological outlier in the race.”
By reassuring the kind of party insiders the media rely heavily on
for framing their stories, Warren has largely avoided the kinds of
aspersions—often anonymous—lobbed at Sanders. For instance, the Washington Post (6/24/19), under the headline “Sanders Faces a New Kind of Threat in Elizabeth Warren,” wrote that Sanders’ strategy of
doubling down on his ideological purity and socialist credentials carries risks for the senator from Vermont, other Democrats say. It’s enabled Warren to position herself as impassioned but reasonable, while Sanders holds down the leftward flank of the Democratic Party and serves as the ideological outlier in the race.
Later, in an article headlined “Bernie Sanders’ Supporters Find Anger Not as Compelling This Time Around,” the Post (8/30/19)
wrote that Warren offered a new option for voters “who are turned off
by his tenor.” After describing Warren and Sanders as “more similar than
different when it comes to policy goals,” the Post explained
that “where the candidates —Sanders a democratic socialist and Warren a
proud capitalist—diverge is in the tenor of their campaigns.” To support
this claim that “tenor” is the key difference between the “democratic
socialist” and the “proud capitalist,” the paper turned to a Brookings
Institution fellow who worked for Bill Clinton:
It’s not as though [Warren is] content to thunder against the evildoers like an Old Testament prophet. That’s much more his mode. Sanders sees [his campaign] as a revolutionary mass movement to upset the established order. While Senator Warren is obviously very dissatisfied with the status quo, she describes her campaign in very different terms, and terms that I think are less scary.
The question this raises, obviously, is who might be scared by
those terms? Warren, who emphasizes that she is “a capitalist to my
bones,” inspires less fear than Sanders, not just among the centrist
party insiders who make up a large bulk of media sources, but also, no
doubt, among the owners and sponsors of major news outlets.
Moreover, with Biden entering the race as the immediate frontrunner
and Sanders as the clearest top rival, given his strong showing against
Hillary Clinton in 2016, Warren has drawn less fire from competitors as
well—which is beginning to change, as Politico (8/30/19) and the Post (9/18/19) have noted.
In opinion sections, Warren is accumulating a fan club among those
meant to represent the left. (The right, unsurprisingly, is taking her
as a serious threat—Vice, 9/12/19.)
While it’s hard to find a columnist in a major newspaper who says
positive things about Sanders, many have professed a fondness for
Warren.
At the New York Times, the love has been particularly flowing. Nicholas Kristof calls her “serious” (6/26/19), Farhad Manjoo (6/6/19) finds her “impressive,” and Gail Collins (8/27/19),
defending Warren against right-wing columnist Bret Stephens, pulled out
the capitalist card: “Elizabeth Warren is a capitalist. She understands
the economic system better than any other candidate.”
The LA Times‘ Virginia Heffernan (9/20/19) praises Warren for not “caterwauling about revolution” like Sanders.
For the LA Times‘ Virginia Heffernan (9/20/19), Warren offered a stark contrast to Sanders (and Biden):
At a time when Bernie Sanders is, with few details, caterwauling about revolution, and Joe Biden is turning to incoherent sentimentalism, [Warren’s] logic is a breath of fresh air.
Heffernan sees Sanders as antagonistic toward the middle class
(“the bourgeoisie, the dread middle class to Democratic socialist
Bernie”), whereas “Warren makes it clear she believes that what’s
greatest about America is the bourgeoisie, and those striving to join it.”
And yet, many of Warren’s famous plans are still deeply worrying to
journalists’ main sources (not to mention those news media owners and
sponsors). So while Warren is often favorably contrasted to Sanders, she
is at the same time the target of “gotcha” articles like the New York Times piece (9/9/19)
attempting to paint her as hypocritical for swearing off “big-money”
donations for her presidential primary run while still using leftover
funds from her Senate race that had made no such vows.
“Admirers and activists praised her stand—but few noted the fact
that she had built a financial cushion by pocketing big checks the years
before,” the Times‘ Shane Goldmacher wrote. Who were
Goldmacher’s sources for the premise of the piece? Not any Warren
supporters he talked to, who seemed pleased that she had renounced such
donations, but “some donors and, privately, opponents” who “are chafing
at her campaign’s purity claims.”
Piling on, the Washington Post gave an op-ed column (9/11/19) to one Times source
who seemed to take her new position particularly personally—former
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who fundraised for Warren’s Senate race
and then for Biden’s 2020 presidential bid, and pouted that where he
once got a “glowing hand-written letter from her for my hard work,” he’s
now being demonized:
It’s one thing to fashion a campaign that relies on grassroots fundraising, but it’s another to go out of your way to characterize as power-brokers and influence-peddlers the very people whose support you have previously courted.
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1 comment:
The notion that the media has given Elizabeth Warren a free ride, while coming down on Bernie Sanders, does not withstand scrutiny. In fact, the spurious attacks on Warren for her "likability," attacks which only women candidates face and which Bernie does not face, is indisputable evidence of this. The attention the media gave to Donald Trump's racist 'Pocahantas' attacks on Warren is evidence of this. Bernie has not faced this racist attack. The fact is that Warren is doing well politically because she has run a good campaign. Spurious attacks by Bernie supporters are only going to reflect poorly on Bernie, not damage Warren.
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