Bernie Sanders Lashes Out At the Media and He's Right

Caricature by DonkeyHotey flic.kr/p/Ct4G4K
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The problem with guys like Bernie Sanders is that despite being lunatics, they are at times right about what problems exist in our government and culture. This is one of those times. The Hill is reporting that in an interview with GQ magazine the Vermont Senator unloaded on the media for suppressing the discussion of serious issues.

“My major lament of the campaign is that media goes overboard to make sure that we do not have the kind of serious discussion we need,” Sanders said in an interview with GQ magazine published Tuesday, “and that it is kind of a little bit strange that you have to go on a comedy show in order to have five minutes to talk about serious issues.”

Sanders was interviewed for GQ’s “Men of the Year” issue.

“What does that say about American political culture, that you have to go on a comedy show? I’m old-fashioned, and I think that politics and public policy are serious issues that need serious discussion, and as a nation I think we need a revolution in media.”

That’s crazy talk. Everyone knows that the purpose of the media is carrying water for the DNC’s chosen candidate and obsessing over celebrities, right? This election revealed that what often gets addressed as simply a left wing ideological bias in the media is very often a partisan Democrat Party bias. Even though Sanders was the most far left candidate in the race, the DNC had anointed Hillary and their media minions followed suit, some reporters even treated her campaign as their editor.

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Sanders is right, there needs to be a revolution—actually a counter-revolution—to overthrow the revolution that turned the fourth estate into the “Democrat-Media complex” described by Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart was leading that counter-revolution before his untimely death, and now what he built has been morphed into the same sort of incestuous mess. The only difference is which politicians are calling the shots.

The problem Sanders brings up is also partly a result of the unfortunate trend of mixing politics and entertainment. Our culture celebri-fies politicians and bestows intellectual authority on celebrities. People literally choose to watch comedy shows in order to get their news.

The media reports on elections like a sportscaster calls a boxing match. They only score who landed the most punches and which did the most damage, often ignoring the fact that in politics you can knock an opponent out by telling lies. They exploit elections as spectacles rather than doing the job of informing the process of self government.  I don’t agree with Sanders on most—if not all—of his proposed solutions to our country’s problems but on this criticism of media he is right. When there are so many outlets covering news 24 hours a day, it’s inexcusable that the coverage is so shallow.

 

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