MSNBC's Anti-Sanders Bias Is Getting Truly Ridiculous
MSNBC's Anti-Sanders Bias Is Getting Truly Ridiculous
Paul Sancya / AP
When MSNBC legal analyst Mimi Rocah (7/21/19) said that Bernie Sanders "made
[her] skin crawl," though she "can't even identify for you what exactly it
is," she was just expressing more overtly the anti-Sanders bias that
pervades the network.
MSNBC's Mimi Rocah
MSNBC's Mimi Rocah (7/21/19) explaining how Bernie Sanders makes her "skin
crawl."
The hostility is so entrenched, in fact, it seems to have corrupted MSNBC's
mathematical reasoning and created a new system of arithmetic. The cable
news network has repeatedly made on-air and online mistakes about Sanders'
polling and other numbers-always to his detriment, and never with any
official correction.
Here are some new rules MSNBC seems to follow when it comes to math and
Bernie Sanders.
1.49 < 48
Result: Sanders goes from second to "fourth" place.
MSNBC made a handy graphic for a poll on July 7 that showed 2020 match-ups
against Trump among Democratic voters. The list was in descending order of
candidates' polling numbers-except for Bernie Sanders, whose name is placed
under Warren's and Harris's, though he polls higher than both of them. (If
the list is ordered by the margin between the candidate and Trump, Sanders
would be in third place, behind Harris.)
MSNBC: 2020 Matchups
MSNBC (7/7/19)
2. 5 >7
Result: Sanders goes from second to "third" place.
Lest you think this was an isolated incident, MSNBC's Steve Kornacki placed
Sanders' name below Warren's on July 15, when he was "reporting" on a poll
put out by the Washington Post and NBC (MSNBC's parent company.) Once again,
the order of the names is descending by poll numbers-except for Bernie
Sanders', which is, once again, placed below where it should be. This time,
Sanders is placed below Warren, though he polls higher than she does (both
in the percentage who say they would vote for each candidate and the spread
over Trump). This same order is used in the online story's headline
(7/14/19), which says, "Trump Trails Biden, Warren and Sanders in New NBC
News/Wall Stree Journal Poll."
MSNBC: 2020 General Election
MSNBC (7/15/19)
But it gets worse. It was misleading to have Sanders' name after Warren's in
the graphic, but an absolute error or lie to say Warren was second, which
Kornacki, who was talking about a poll conducted by his own company, did. I
had to re-watch the video to make sure I wasn't missing something, but
Kornacki does indeed say (at 1:09): "Elizabeth Warren, she's been running
second place, she is running second place on the Democratic side. She leads
Trump by 5 points." Then Kornacki shows the person who is actually in second
place and says, "Bernie Sanders, he leads by 7 points."
3. +5 = -5.
Result: Sanders "loses" ten points.
Meet the Press's Chuck Todd (5/24/19) showed a graphic claiming that Sanders
had gone down 5 points in a Quinnipiac poll. Todd got the absolute value
right, he just got the value sign wrong: Sanders didn't go down by 5 in the
poll, he went up by 5 - a 10-point difference.
MSNBC: 2020 Democratic Match-Up Polls
MSNBC (5/24/19)
Quinnipiac: April 30, 2019
Quinnipiac (4/30/19)
Quinnipiac: May 21, 2019
Quinnipiac (5/21/19)
4.25 = 28
Result: Sanders goes from first to "second" place.
After an April Monmouth poll showed Sanders polling at 27 percent among
non-white voters and Biden polling at 25 percent, Velshe and Ruhle (4/29/19)
showed a graphic which somehow added three points to Biden's numbers,
putting him in "first" place.
MSNBC: Democrat Support Among Non-White Voters
MSNBC (4/29/19)
Monmouth Poll: April 23, 2019
Monmouth (4/23/19)
5. Less than $200 = 0
Result: Sanders goes from a candidate with one of the best records with
female donors to one of the "worst."
Rachel Maddow on April 29 did a segment (and tweeted) about a study on the
gender of campaign donors. Unfortunately, she forgot to say the study she
cited only looked at donors who gave $200 or more. After praising Gillibrand
for "doing the best in terms of targeting female donors," Maddow urged her
viewers to
"
look at the other end of the spectrum! Just strikes me as unsustainable.
Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.. Look at them! Both of them are raising
twice as much money from male donors as they are from female donors. 66 and
67 percent of your donations are from dudes? Dude!
MSNBC: Presidential Candidates Contributions by Gender
MSNBC (4/29/19)
The same Open Secrets report Maddow was citing explained that its results
were skewed: Since
"
Sanders has the highest amount of money coming from small donors.at 74
percent.[and] generally only donations above $200 are itemized.the gender
landscape of small donations are absent.
In fact, according to Sanders' communications director, 46 percent of the
525,000 people who contributed to Sanders' campaign during the first quarter
were women. "It is virtually certain," she tweeted, "that more women have
donated to our campaign than any other."
Rachel Maddow: You're a Rhodes scholar, have a nightly news show, earn $7
million a year, and missed or failed to disclose that the study only looked
at wealthier dudes and dudettes? Dude!
6.23 minutes = 5 minutes
Result: Sanders goes from highlighting his opposition to racism and sexism
to "not mentioning" them.
In March, MSNBC's Alex Whit hosted a panel to discuss Bernie Sanders' March
2 campaign kickoff speech. Panelist and MSNBC political analyst Zerlina
Maxwell said: "I clocked it. He [Bernie Sanders] did not mention race or
gender until 23 minutes into the speech."
As Sanders surrogates, journalists, organizers, activists and people on
Twitter pointed out, Sanders most definitely mentioned race and gender five
minutes into his speech, when he said "the underlying principles of our
government" will "not be racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and
religious bigotry." Sanders starts his speech 31 seconds after he gets on
stage so, to be charitable to his critics, he doesn't mention gender or race
until 5:31.
Maxwell, a former Hillary Clinton staffer, though MSNBC didn't mention that
when they introduced her, did delete a tweet which had said, "OK 23 minutes
in Bernie finally mentions race and gender." But she was far from contrite:
"
I've rewatched since yesterday and while I can acknowledge that I missed the
passing line at 6 minutes I stand by my point since talking about criminal
justice is not the same thing as talking about race and gender and if you
don't get why Bernie won't win..again.
Sanders spoke about race and gender outside of the context of criminal
justice, which anyone who watched or rewatched the speech would know. But
accuracy seems not seem not to be the point so much as it is putting down a
candidate who makes your "skin crawl," for reasons that you can't quite
explain. Citizens, including the ones MSNBC claims to speak for, deserve
better.
Katie Halper / FAIR
