Why does mainstream media continue to ignore Senator Bernie Sanders?

U.S. Uncut complained that the mainstream media have been ignoring Senator Sanders since he first announced his candidacy. The Inquisitr confirmed what many of Sen. Sanders’ supporters have been complaining about for months: Sanders’ campaign is being “ignored by major news organizations.” If one gets one’s political news from social media, it looks like Bernie Sanders is a serious contender against both Hillary Clinton and the four remaining Republican candidates. If one gets one’s news from mainstream media, then it’s a matter of “Bernie Who?,” and it’s taken for granted that the election will be between former Secretary of State Clinton and reality TV host/businessman Donald Trump.

John Atcheson of Common Dreams offered this analysis.

“Media analysts and pundits are trained to analyze political races as horse races. It’s all about tactics, money raised, who has support from whom, who’s ‘supposed’ to win. They simply aren’t equipped to understand a phenomena that comes from outside their wheelhouse. In fact, many resent the presence of an outsider who refuses to play by the same old corrupt rules. This is clear in the irrational attacks from normally rational players like Paul Krugman. In fact, the entire New York Times and Washington Post editorial staff and most of their news folks seem to be engaged in a institutional attack against Sanders.”

The Huffington Post reported back in August of 2015 that Sanders is “laughing all the way through his media black out,” speaking to huge crowds and raising money from citizen donors instead of corporations, one or two dollars at a time. Sanders has refused donations from corporations and multi-millionaires. His money comes in what Trump and Clinton would consider infinitesimal amounts and yet he managed to raised $6.5 million in a single day.

Saturday, March 5, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, and Louisiana voted. The Memphis Commercial-Appeal mentioned Sen. Sanders only once above the fold, and not at all in the headlines. Other newspapers emphasized Clinton’s win in Louisiana and downplayed Sanders’ victories in Nebraska and Kansas.

CNN ignored Bernie Sanders’ resounding victory over Hillary Clinton in Michigan and focused on Donald Trump.

According to an article by John Nichols in The Nation, the coverage given to Donald Trump is completely out of balance to the coverage given to Bernie Sanders.

“On the Republican side, the Real Clear Politics poll averages have Trump attracting 30.4 percent support nationally among voters who might reasonably be expected to participate in Republican primaries and caucuses. On the Democratic side, the RCP poll averages have Clinton leading. But Sanders is attracting 31 percent support in the Democratic race—a better number than Trump.”

In other words, Bernie Sanders is getting more support than Donald Trump, but he’s only getting a fraction of the attention. Slant News pointed out that many political polls are badly flawed, either using “poor sampling procedures or deliberately undermining” Sen. Sanders.

According to the Intercept, CBS CEO Les Moonves applauds Donald Trump’s candidacy not because he thinks Trump will be a wise and competent leader for the United States, but because his immature antics increase CBS’ ratings and advertising revenue. Trump, who has four times filed for bankruptcy, “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS, that’s all I got to say,” Moonves was quoted as saying.

Journalistic ethics calls for a balanced analysis of all candidates. Journalistic ethics demands a sharp divide between fact and opinion. Are members of the Fourth Estate presenting a fair and balanced report of all candidates?

Many political pundits have claimed that Bernie Sanders’ schemes are unpractical and not well thought out. Yet Sen. Sanders has announced his goals and how he hopes to pay for them, unlike Trump, who seems to have difficulty answering specific questions about his goals and plans.

Why does mainstream media continue to ignore Bernie Sanders? Will they still be doing so on January 20, 2017?

[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]