Last Week a giant kerfuffle bloomed over Bernie Sanders claiming that the Washington Post had gone after him. It was such a to do that it showed up here with the traditional claims that Bernie is evil and will destroy all that is good. Part of that story was included the Senior Editor at the Post, Marty Baron, claiming that they had full independence from Jeff Bezos. Well maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Post did indeed go after Mr. Sanders, and does so regularly.
Let me begin by asking the question, when did folks at the Daily Kos trust the MSM to tell them the truth? There is ample evidence that these guys have fallen down on the job, but somehow, when they tell folks what they want to hear, well then they are all good. We ought to know better.
To get to the bottom of a claim of unfair coverage isn’t hard, you simply have to go and look. Fortunately, there is an organization that does this for me. They tend to stick to the Times, the Post, and to NPR. That would be because these three news sources claim to be unbiased, when in fact they really aren’t.
I am going to paste the start of the article that FAIR sent me on the topic. It is extensive.
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Here’s the Evidence Corporate Media Say Is Missing of WaPo Bias Against Sanders
view post on FAIR.org
by Julie Hollar
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Bernie Sanders has taken to calling out corporate media for their anti-progressive bias, and their feathers have gotten quite ruffled.
In a campaign event Monday in New Hampshire, Sanders told the crowd:
We have pointed out over and over again that Amazon made $10 billion in profits last year. You know how much they paid in taxes? You got it, zero! Any wonder why the Washington Post is not one of my great supporters, I wonder why? New York Times not much better.
The next day, he returned to the same point:
And then I wonder why the Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon, doesn’t write particularly good articles about me. I don’t know why.
The Post‘s executive editor, Martin Baron, immediately retorted (CNN, 8/12/19) that Sanders was spouting a “conspiracy theory,” insisting that “Jeff Bezos allows our newsroom to operate with full independence, as our reporters and editors can attest.”
Many others in corporate media were incensed as well. NPR‘s All Things Considered (8/13/19) accused Sanders of “echoing the president’s language,” and CNN (8/13/19) ran a segment that likewise accused him of using Trump’s “playbook”; CNN‘s Poppy Harlow warned ominously, “This seems like a dangerous line, continuous accusations against the media with no basis in fact or evidence provided.”
FAIR has been following this issue for quite some time, so we’re happy to offer the evidence CNN and the Post protest is lacking.
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Fifteen of the 16 negative stories on the Bernie Sanders campaign that the Washington Post ran over a 16-hour period (FAIR.org, 3/8/16).
We could start with the 16 negative stories the Post ran in 16 hours (FAIR.org, 3/8/16), and follow that up with the four different Sanders-bashing pieces the paper put out in seven hours based on a single think tank study (FAIR.org, 5/11/16).
Or you could take the many occasions on which the Post‘s factchecking team performed impressive contortions to interpret Sander’s fact-based statements as meriting multiple “Pinocchios” (e.g., FAIR.org, 1/25/17, 3/20/17). In particular, we might observe the time the Post “factchecked” Sanders’ claim that the world’s six wealthiest people are worth as much as half the global population (FAIR.org, 10/3/17 ). It just so happens that one of those six multi-billionaires is Bezos, which would make an ethical journalist extra careful not to show favoritism.
Instead, after acknowledging that Sanders was, in fact, correct, the paper’s Nicole Lewis awarded him “three Pinocchios”—a rating that indicates “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.” This is because, the paper explained, even though the number comes from a reputable nonpartisan source, Oxfam, which got its data from Credit Suisse, “It’s hard to make heads or tails of what wealth actually means, with respect to people’s daily lives around the globe.”
This is about one-third of the article which gives multiple links to multiple attacks. As you can see, the evidence is extensive. This is why it doesn’t surprise me that so many here have a negative view of Sanders, they’re being spoonfed that view by the MSM. No one should be surprised by this, no one.
I can not recommend FAIR enough. They count and cite their references regularly. They don’t spout out things, yes, I’m talking to you Marty, without evidence. That makes them a very credible news source.
Monday, Aug 19, 2019 · 4:38:28 PM +00:00
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lyleoross
As an aside, the FAIR article also looks at WaPo coverage of Jeff Bezos. It will shock you to know that it is remarkably uncritical of Bezos, must be because he’s such a stellar guy, not because WaPo’s coverage is biased.