To answer my first question it's 17.2%

When was the last time you saw a major corporate media conglomerate cover that issue?

and a few other things. And I get a daily barrage of emails from all of them and more. I see Alabama stories.

The poorer parts of the South are not daily stories, but are ongoing situations that come up as they come up.

The current situation with the press is not ideal, but it has never been ideal, nor will it ever be-- that's the down side of a free press. The only thing we can do, short of starting our own networks, is support those who give it a good shot. And try to work within a faulty system. Pushing for more anti-monopoly rules would help, too.

If you think this is bad, imagine living when Hearst was around. Or the Times-Tribune circulation wars.

speaking of poverty in general not just the south.

The poster I responded to has an Alabama thingy if you reply to him/her that's why I singled out that state.

upon advertising sales, and most people really would prefer to watch something else. And the networks do occasionally tackle tough stories in hour long specials.

There was a TV station in the Midwest that tried to do in-depth reporting about real issues on the evening news, and their ratings tanked. Don't blame the news for their viewers faults.

If people actually cared, PBS and NPR ratings would be through the roof.

that lower rates or altogether eliminating poverty would increase sales to businesses which in turn would have more money to spend on advertising.

Great ships don't turn on a dime.

You can take the short or self-centered view which the United States has done for decades on a macro level living for the next quarter in the stock market and that in turn translates to the American People increasingly falling behind and living paycheck to paycheck on a micro level.

That is a sure fire trek down the road to perdition for our nation whether it be economics, the environment ie: climate change, our crumbling infrastructure or the quality of our labor force as we continue to slip behind more enlightened nations that believe their people are citizens first and consumers second.

Aside from the economic argument, with great power comes great responsibility and the corporate media conglomerates are most powerful, their ethos should not be based on just selling the American People a self-serving policy, politician or down the river.

If they focused on the long view or big picture instead of just their own glamour and short term profits over time they could lift the American People up to a higher level of awareness versus dumbing them down just to make easier marks.

The media is going to cover him and the other candidates as they have in the past.
That's not changing.

No one is going to start being pro-Bernie because Bernie says the media is unfair to him, so it's not garnering new voters either.

So, what's the point?

that makes it easy to ignore the point.

Bernie's been railing about the media and socialism for a long time yes?
What change has that decades of railing brought in substantive terms?
Perhaps, that particular track is not fruitful?

Insert your hands up shoulder shrug smilely here.

....which it misrepresents. Along with many programs that would benefit the majority and lower income disparity, which are also called "socialistic". It's of a piece with demonizing Bernie.

That's the point.

Do you know that the term "tax cuts" as being an excellent thing was purposely used by the Repugs as part of the Southern strategy, because they realized they could no longer use the old dog whistles, such as "welfare queen"?

Media fears Bernie and his analysis.

I'm not going to get into more because Bernie is often so belittled around here and it's really a bore. But, have a good day.

Get out of town!!

Guess what, that's not going to change by complaints about "the media."
It's not going to compel new folks to rethink it, and it's not going to cause the media to suddenly say hey this socialism stuff is kinda cool and will totally be embraced by your average American.

So, again, "the point" isn't really a good one.

which is never an appealing trait for a political campaign.

https://vtdigger.org/2019/08/13/margolis-sanders-whining-is-not-good-political-strategy/

if Bernie and his team and his supporters actually used strategy and persuasion they'd get more converts and push things more...but they are more focused on being righteous and acting as if the mere force of their conviction should persuade you that they don't spend a lot of time actually persuading others. They don't work the craft of couching things in terms that might appeal to those who are less progressive. They don't try to address the concerns of those with whom they disagree. Instead of whining about coverage, address concerns and provide concrete reasons why they shouldn't be concerns or will be overcome.

I will give you an example. The cost of Medicare for All.

I keep waiting to see one of the candidates who support M4A to make a very simple, repetitive statement.

"Right now you pay X in healthcare costs annually. With M4A, you will no longer pay X in healthcare costs, instead you will pay X-Y in taxes and receive Z% better healthcare in return. Thus you will save A dollars a year annually (the difference between paying X and paying X-Y)."

That's addressing the concern of costs. Simply. Effectively. Instead, that concern is mocked by some candidates, and yes including Harris who I overall support.

Instead, the closest I've seen is Warren making this argument in a very unclear and obtuse way with Chris Matthews. She made the general point but put no facts or data behind it. When you do that, people assume the facts and data don't support your argument, otherwise you'd provide it, or you don't actually have the facts and data, you are just making an argument.

Now, I'm sure there are policy papers somewhere that lay this out, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about simple persuasion. Identifying concerns and addressing them. Sanders barely does it all. Warren does a much better job but could do more IMO. Regardless, the huge amount of wasted energy in complaining about the media is what holds Sanders back.

"News" has become just another income stream for corporations, so "news" is inevitably driven to make profits and to protect corporate interests.

That's human nature. And corporations are people too. lol



Had to add the sarcasm emoji to make sure people trapped inside the corporate news bubble understood that. lol

....created by David Sirota?

I'm sure you read his so-called "newsletter", which is rife with inaccuracies and exaggerations.

is why your candidate and your cohort struggle to gain additional followers.

still not in first and in great danger of not being in second either (and in some places, not even third).

But hey, it's a cool map, and he can hang it up somewhere in his office.

(Senate office, not the Oval Office).

Trump's FCC plans to continue a decades-long, lobbyist-backed effort to allow media consolidation, helping corporate bottom lines but hurting independent journalism.

Earlier this week, we wrote about a pending deal between Sinclair Broadcasting and Tribune Media. Sinclair hopes to buy Tribune, a move that will allow the company to broadcast news to 70 percent of Americans.

But the deal has raised eyebrows. The company is notoriously close with Trump, and also favored George W. Bush when he was president. The company’s DC office produces conservative commentary and news segments that paint Republicans in a favorable light, and distributes them to local stations around the country. Some worry that Sinclair hopes to create a competitor to Fox News, operating out of local television stations across America.

If the deal does go through — anti-trust regulators and the FCC will have to approve it — it will only have been possible because earlier this year, Trump’s FCC chair Ajit Pai relaxed rules preventing media consolidation. Like much the FCC deals with — net neutrality, internet privacy — media consolidation is a dull-sounding topic that is nonetheless very important. It has a direct hand in the quality of American journalism, and it dictates how accountable that journalism is to its audience.

What is media consolidation?
Media consolidation is the concentration of ownership of our news sources into the hands of fewer and fewer corporations.

Why should I care about it?
Bill Moyers explains how media consolidation has grown since the 1980s

One of the few things the American people agree on is that the mainstream media is woefully inadequate. According to a 2016 Gallup poll, only about 20 percent of Americans have confidence in the television news and in newspapers. Donald Trump effectively harnessed this distrust during his campaign, and still attacks the media before his fans when he wants to prompt applause.
Americans recognize that the media does not represent their views, and media consolidation is largely to blame. In the early 1980s, journalist Ben Bagdikian calculated that the majority of US media was held by just 50 corporations — and the number has dropped to only a handful since then.

This means that national and even local news coverage priorities are dictated from afar —
and by business leaders, not by journalists on the ground. It means that as print and broadcast journalism struggles to remain profitable in the face of free, online alternatives, hard financial decisions that affect reporters and the stories they tell will be made in corporate boardrooms. And it assures that some issues — issues in which corporate America is uninterested — go uncovered, while some voices — particularly female, minority and immigrant voices — rarely make it into print or onto the airwaves.

https://billmoyers.com/story/media-consolidation-should-anyone-care/

Maybe independent journalism would be nicer?

publish puff pieces for him.

The control of the mass media is in such few hands, there is little objective reporting anymore. and I don’t mean the both-sidism of the likes of CNN.
Three things killed the objective, fair reporting:
1) Abolishing the Fairness Doctrine
2) The Telecommunications Act of 1998
3) The Death of the local Newspaper (mainly thanks to Craigslist)

Senator Warren has just as liberal or even more liberal platform compared to sanders and she is not being hurt in the polls or getting bad press coverage

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