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Thousands of activists have joined a mass sit-in on the U.S. Capitol steps, drawing attention to and protesting the corruptive influence of money in politics.

With a slogan of “Sit in with thousands, save democracy for millions,” Democracy Spring protests have persisted since 11 April, with reports of over 700 arrests.

The demonstration could be the largest such non-violent protest in the history of Washington D.C, yet corporate media coverage of the event has been all but nonexistent.

According to a tweet by investigative journalism outlet The Intercept “MSNBC spent 12 seconds discussing #DemocracySpring protest; Fox News about 17 seconds; CNN chose not to cover it.”

While #DemocracySpring trended on social media with “over 136,000 tweets,” the corporate cable news instead focused on the empty GOP and Democratic sparring—even so, Democratic socialist candidate Bernie Sanders’s campaign has received virtually no media coverage—meaning the establishment media chose to focus on Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton.

According to The Intercept:

MSNBC and Fox News not only provided minimal coverage, but hosts on both networks misrepresented the protests, claiming they were narrowly focused only on “voting rights issues.” The focus on systemic political corruption, an issue that was widely criticized during the rally yesterday, was ignored.



Later in the day, CNN posted a short item on its website. The protests were widely covered by CSPAN, Al Jazeera, and NPR, among other outlets. But cable news programs, which specialize in American political news, were another story.

The corporate ties between parent companies of so-called news stations like MSNBC, Fox and CNN are largely donors to establishment political campaigns.

The owner of MSNBC for example, is NBCUniversal. The owner of NBCUniversal is the Comcast Corporation, a company with a nearly $60 billion yearly revenue.

According to Open Secrets, a website that tracks campaign and Super PAC donations, Comcast has given huge sums of money to both Republican Congressional and Senatorial committees, but also the Democratic Senatorial committee and Democratic National Committee (DNC).

In total, the company has given $3,210,030 to candidates and another $928,500 to Super PACs.

The DNC backs Hillary Clinton for the Democratic party nomination, with chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz earlier this year admitting the purpose of the DNC and the Super-Delegate system is to ensure party elites don’t have to run “against grassroots activists.”

#DemocracySpring is not the first such protest meant bring attention to the media blackout of the grassroots.

Earlier this month in Hollywood, California nearly one thousand demonstrators gathered outside CNN’s west coast headquarters to #OccupyCNN and shine a light on the media blackout of grassroots candidate Bernie Sanders. Although protests were happening right outside, the network refused to even mention them.

Despite Bernie Sanders winning 7 out of the last 8 contests against establishment candidate Hillary Clinton, the media continues to ignore his campaign—just as the undemocratic Super-delegates continue to pledge for Clinton.

If Sanders wins the upcoming 19 April primary in New York, however, the race is his. But it is a fair bet Clinton will use her vast corporate ties and money to knock down the candidate that relies only on small donations from individuals.