Media coverage of Bernie Sanders
[3] The executive editor of the Washington Post rejected Sanders's suggestion, describing it as a "conspiracy theory" and stating that Bezos "allows our newsroom to operate with full independence.
"[4] In the following election in 2024, Bezos did reportedly intervene by preventing the Post's Editorial Board from publishing a drafted endorsement of the then-Democratic Party nominee.
[7] Despite a strong performance in some states, Sanders failed the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primary with his opponent Clinton winning the nomination by June 2016.
[8] A 2018 book by political scientists John M. Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck found that the amount of news coverage Sanders received exceeded his share in the national polls in 2015.
"[1] Furthermore, "media coverage brought Sanders to a wider audience and helped spur his long climb in the polls by conveying the familiar tale of the surprisingly successful underdog.
"[10][11] In her 2018 book The Unprecedented 2016 Presidential Election, Rachel Bitecofer wrote that the Democratic primary was effectively over in terms of delegate count by mid-March 2016, but that the media promoted the narrative that the contest between Sanders and Clinton was "heating up" at that time.
[12] Bitecofer found that Trump received more media coverage than Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders combined during a time when those were the only primary candidates left in the race.
[13]: 6–7 Early in the primary, John Sides found that the volume of media coverage of Sanders was consistent with his polling and that the press he was getting was more favorable than Clinton's.
"[18] In the following month, Margaret Sullivan, public editor of The New York Times, wrote that she had received many complaints from readers about purported bias against Sanders.
[19] Later in the month, The Washington Post wrote that "Sanders has not faced the kind of media scrutiny, let alone attacks from opponents, that leading candidates eventually experience.
"[20] In January 2016, Claire Malone from FiveThirtyEight rejected notions that Sanders was the subject of a "media blackout", saying he received 30 percent of coverage in the Democratic primary at that time.
[2] In Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi criticized The New York Times for retroactively making online changes to a March 15, 2016 article about Sanders's legislative accomplishments over the past 25 years.
[31][32] According to a March 2019 analysis by Northeastern University's School of Journalism, Sanders received the most positive coverage of any major candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary.
[39] In a December 2019 opinion column for The New York Times, David Leonhardt agreed with Politico co-founder John F. Harris about the media having a centrist bias.
[52][53] The following week, Chuck Todd criticized the rhetoric of Sanders supporters by quoting a conservative article which compared them to brown shirts in the Nazi regime.
Although largely focused on interviews with campaign staff, the film also attempted to draw parallels between the media's treatment of Sanders supporters and opponents of the Iraq War.
