Let’s go to the scoreboard to see who’s winning the exciting game of “Presidential Election Media Coverage.”
A nonpartisan media-monitoring firm that has been tracking the nightly news broadcasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC reports that Trump is tromp, tromp, tromping over the airtime of everyone else. From last January through November, these dominant flagship news shows devoted 234 minutes of prime-time coverage to the incessant chirping of the Yellow-Crested Birdbrain, with no other contender getting even a fourth of that.
Take Democrat Bernie Sanders, who’s stunning the political establishment with a fiery populist campaign that’s drawing record crowds. Indeed, Sanders’ upstart campaign is getting higher poll ratings in the Democratic contest than Trump is getting in the GOP race. And – get this – polls also show Bernie topping the Donald by 10 points if they face each other in November’s presidential showdown. So surely he’s getting a proportional level of media coverage by the networks on our public airwaves, right?
Ha, just kidding! The ABC, CBS, NBC devotion of 234 minutes to all-things-Trump was “balanced” by less than 10 minutes for Sanders. Most egregious was ABC, the Disney-owned network. ABC’s World News Tonight awarded 81 minutes of national showtime to Trump last year – and for Bernie: 20 seconds.
How self-serving of the media moguls! The one candidate who is effectively rallying large numbers of voters to oppose the rise of corporate oligarchy – including in the media – has the plug pulled on him. Of course, this only amplifies the truth of what Sanders is saying about the villainy of corporate profiteers, and it fuels a greater determination by his millions of grassroots supporters to end the reign of greed in America. For information and action, go to www.berniesanders.com.
This article appears in January 15 • 2016.