Bernie Bias, The Billionaire Class and How We Win
Why do corporate media sources always misrepresent Bernie Sanders? The reason is actually quite simple: it’s in the corporate media’s financial interest to reject Sanders and democratic socialism.
When Bernie wins, the billionaire class loses power and money. Therefore, the billionaire class wants Bernie to lose.
Sanders broke it down clearly on The Young Turks in 2016, in the clip below:
Sanders explains,
“The media is the arm of the ruling class of this country. And they want to talk about everything in the world except the most important issues. Because if you talk about real issues and people get educated on the real issues, do you know what happens next? They actually may want to bring about change.”
First, Bernie tells us the problem: the ruling class omits important issues actually effecting Americans.
Then, he says why they omit it: they’ll lose commercial revenue.
Finally, he concludes what is to be done to solve the problem — the working class must constantly remind each other of the financial stakes implicit in every news story.
Simply, the news is not operated to inform viewers; it’s run by billionaires in service of other billionaires, so they can buy ad space to convince people to buy their products. The news is not in between the commercials — the news is a commercial for capitalism.
Sanders’s 2020 campaign manager Faiz Shakir was able to explain these stakes on CNN’s Reliable Sources.
This link will let you watch the full 9 minute interview on Streamable but I transcribed most of it below. You won’t find this video on CNN’s official media channels, proving the corporate bias of omission.
First, the host asked Shakir if he was ready for the debate; Sanders campaign manager replied to host on the network producing the debates, “These debates tend to make people stupider. They’re performative theater. We don’t end up having the conversations that effect peoples lives.”
The host presses on, continuing to miss the critique, “Don’t you need journalists on the trail covering Sanders?” Yes we need journalists, however, we need journalists that aren’t in the pocket of big money.
“We’re a campaign that taking on established power,” Shakir explains, “…arguing against the corruption of the political system, the economic system and in many cases the media system. In order to get that message out, you need to go directly to voters, and that’s why you hear [the Sanders campaign] trying to build media channels talking directly to people.” The host concedes that Sanders has been using public broadcasting to build political education for decades.
The most enlightening part of the interview comes when the host asks Shakir what Sanders supporters want the media to do differently.
“In about a minute, you’ll cut to commercial break and we’ll see pharmaceutical ads. You’ll see ads that are paying [the hosts] bills and the bills of the entire media enterprise. What that ends up doing is incentivizing you and others to make sure you’re asking questions and driving the conversations into certain areas and not in certain areas.”
The host asks what evidence Shakir has and he uses coverage of Medicare for All as an example.
“Do you know why you pay 10 times more for prescription drugs than any other country? Does anyone know or understand why? Do you know what the Trump administration is doing about that? Do you even know who the head of the Health and Human Services Secretary is [ed: it’s Alex Azar]? Do you know his background, that he worked in the pharmaceutical industry?
…Donald Trump churns out tweets to distract all of us but there isn’t a conversation around the fact that he’s betraying the working class by having selected a group of people who come from industry, and benefit industry, and that story is not told.
…You rarely see pundits talking about the value of Medicare for All, you see a lot people criticizing it. You don’t see people talk about the value of canceling all student debt, you see people criticizing it. And why is that? We’re taking on corporate power and the establishment across the board and all we’re asking for is a fair shake.”
Our host raises an objection, “Don’t you know what you know from media reporting?”
In other words, the fact that we can identify the problem with media bias at all therefore proves it doesn’t exist: if the media can’t inform us, how could we even know?
This is where things start getting very interesting —because while the media leaves breadcrumbs of truth sprinkled here and there, they make them hard to with the constant repeat and re-editing of corporate lies.
In other words, this interview I’m quoting from with Shakir is not available on CNN’s website. You’re only going to see it on citizen-ripped uploads. CNN is actively censoring itself when confronted with a critique of their profit interest.
Watch the full interview at this link. Compared to the CNN version cut down to 2 minutes, they’re completely different stories. The 2 minute soundbite version focuses on on how the Sanders campaign wants to focus on policy, not personality — entirely omitting the interview’s corporate critique.
This is why the campaign is “Trying to build media channels and talk directly to people.” It’s why they set up Bernie with a Twitch channel and The 99 is a show formatted like cable news, but not beholden to corporate sponsors.
Likewise, volunteers are stepping up to educate on media bias. The video linked at the top, edited by Bernie: Then & Now, is trying to post footage of Bernie misrepresentation today, juxtaposed next to Bernie’s consistent platform throughout his political history.
