Feb 15, 2020

Bernie Sanders Faces a Media Rigged Against Him

By Jeff Cohen / truthdig.com
Bernie Sanders Faces a Media Rigged Against Him
"Former" White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina. Jim currently works as a corporate consultant and is the CEO of The Messina Group.

CNN and CBS do it. NPR and PBS do it. They all do it.

It’s a “gentleman’s” agreement between elite media and their establishment guests—a courtesy major news outlets bestow upon former officials who get to pontificate and editorialize about today’s events with no worry they’ll be identified by their jobs today.

On Wednesday night, CNN’s Don Lemon hosted ubiquitous Bernie Sanders-basher Jim Messina—solo, without an opposing view—to slam Sanders and his Medicare-for-All proposal.

Messina was introduced and repeatedly identified only by his former positions: “Former Obama Campaign Manager” and “Former Deputy Chief of Staff, Obama Administration.”

As is typical, viewers weren’t told what Messina’s current job is—far more relevant information than his positions years ago.

Messina is now a corporate consultant. He is CEO of The Messina Group, whose website boasts corporate clients such as Amazon’s pharmaceutical subsidiary PillPack, Google, Uber, Delta, and that boasts the slogan: “Unlocking Industries So Businesses Can Win.”

If properly introduced, it would have been no surprise to CNN viewers that a corporate consultant would malign Sanders, the most popular anti-corporate politician in recent U.S. history.

Lemon also neglected to inform viewers that since leaving Team Obama, Messina has been paid handsomely to elect conservative politicians across the globe, from Tory Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May in Britain to Prime Minster Mariano Rajoy in Spain. Messina’s company website features an image of Cameron next to a banner that reads: “Campaigning for candidates we believe in.”

In U.S. corporate media, such misidentification is a hoary tradition, and a dishonest one. More relevant to news consumers in judging the quality of information from a former government official would be the current employment and entanglements of that ex-official.

In the months after the Chinese government massacred students in Tiananmen Square in 1989, no voice in U.S. media was more prominent or ubiquitous in apologizing for China than Henry Kissinger, usually identified only as “former Secretary of State.” Consumers of news were almost never told that at the time, Kissinger was a consultant to corporations doing business in China, as well as the head of China Ventures, a company engaged in joint ventures with China’s state bank.

When health care reform was being hotly debated in 1993-94, NPR presented point-counterpoint face-offs between a former GOP congressman and a former Democratic congressman, both of whom were quick to deride the proposal in Congress for a single-payer system of government-provided health insurance. NPR didn’t tell its listeners that both of its “formers” were current lobbyists or consultants for private health care corporations.

A lot of the corruption in Washington—the kind Sanders and Elizabeth Warren criticize—stems from former officials, whether Democrat or Republican, leaving government to work as consultants or lobbyists for private interests. Mainstream news outlets work hard to look away from this corruption, and one way they do so is by dutifully identifying their “experts” only as formers.

Anita Dunn will always be the “former Obama White House Communications Director.” (In that job, she assisted first lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign.) But after leaving the White House, Dunn became a consultant for food companies seeking to block restrictions on sugary food ads targeted toward children. She also consulted for TransCanada in its push for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Today, Dunn is a senior adviser on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

A warning to news consumers: When CNN or NPR or PBS introduces a guest only as a “former” official, you are being lied to more often than not.

 

Jeff Cohen is director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. He co-founded the online activism group RootsAction.org in 2011 and founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986.

Corporations   Media   Media Literacy   Politics
Rate this article 
Corporations
The Conflation Trap: How the Left & Right get Fooled into Supporting Elite Interests
Why We Need Big Picture Activism
Trending Videos
Anonymous Issues DIRE WARNING To MAGA | The Kyle Kulinski Show
11 min - Anonymous has released a new video warning about the growing threats posed by Trump, JD Vance, and Elon Musk. They outline how economic policies, mass firings, and regulatory rollbacks are...
This Is The Most Powerful Lobbying Firm in Washington
10 min - Trump attacked lobbyists as a candidate. Then he hired one as chief of staff. Now corporations are rushing to hire her former firm Ballard Partners. They registered 41 clients since the election —...
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011)
174 min - A series of BBC films about how humans have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the...
How Peter Thiel Got Rich | Second Thought (2022)
12 min - Billionaire Peter Thiel won big in the midterms, buying himself a Senate seat in Ohio. So what does Thiel want? Unfettered corporate power and the destruction of government institutions. This...
Elon, DOGE Betray MAGA Working Class
17 min - Ryan and Emily discuss Elon betraying MAGA working class voters. Sohrab Ahmari: https://x.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1889732502379507883 
The Unholy Alliance Between MAGA and Big Tech
9 min - Trump’s second term marks the full evolution from Reagan-era capitalism to corporate authoritarianism, fueled by alliances with tech oligarchs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. This video...
The Corporation (2003)
145 min - The Corporation is today's dominant institution, creating great wealth but also great harm. This 26 award-winning documentary examines the nature, evolution, impacts and future of the modern...
Trending Articles
Videos Under Five Minutes
Anti-Fascist Activism & The Value of Nonviolence
Subscribe for $5/mo to Watch over 50 Patron-Exclusive Films
Subscribe $5/mo View All Patron Films

 

Your support keeps us ad-free and financially independent

Our 10,000+ video & article library is 99% free, ad-free, and entirely community-funded thanks to our patron subscribers!


Want to donate extra? You can subscribe and donate an extra $5/mo or more.