Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign alleged Monday that corporate media outlets are intentionally ignoring—and attempting to undermine—the Vermont senator’s significant gains in recent polls with “cartoonishly inaccurate” reporting and headlines.
“In the last week, a wave of polls has emerged showing a genuine, full-on Bernie surge—but you might not know that if you tuned into cable TV or read the headlines from the national press corps,” Sanders speechwriter David Sirota wrote in the campaign’s Bern Notice newsletter. “In fact, you might not even know Bernie is running for president.”
“Despite all this data, many in the national press corps continued to both inaccurately report the polling results—and also pretend Bernie doesn’t exist.”
—David Sirota, speechwriter for Sen. Bernie Sanders
Sirota highlighted what he described as a widening “divide between The Actual Polls and The Media’s Manufactured Narrative.”
The polls, Sirota noted, show Sanders is leading in New Hampshire, in second place and gaining momentum (pdf) in Iowa, in second place and surging in the key battleground state of Michigan, and the only 2020 Democrat leading President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
“Despite all this data, many in the national press corps continued to both inaccurately report the polling results—and also pretend Bernie doesn’t exist,” wrote Sirota, who pointed to several flagrant examples that he said are part of a pattern of media outlets attempting to “ignore and derail” the Sanders campaign’s momentum.
“In a report about its own poll showing Bernie in first place in New Hampshire,” Sirota wrote. “CNN put an inaccurate graphic up showing Bernie in second place.”
The Intercept‘s Ryan Grim highlighted the error on Twitter:
Click Here: st kilda saints guernsey 2019
Sirota also cited a report by the New York Times claiming that South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg “eclipsed” Sanders—despite the poll the story was based showing Sanders in second place ahead of Buttigieg.
On other occasions, corporate media outlets like CNN and the Times have simply left Sanders out of the conversation—a phenomenon the Sanders campaign has described as the “Bernie Blackout.”
Journalist Ken Klippenstein noted the phenomenon on Monday in response to the Times poll that showed Warren and Sanders—given the margin of error—statistically tied. The newspaper’s push notification tellingly left Sanders’ name out entirely.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT