Why Does the Corporate Mainstream Media Shut Out Bernie Sanders?

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont) is a long-time reader and fan of BuzzFlash.  On  June 3, his press secretary sent us the following commentary to post on BuzzFlash at Truthout. For years, Thom Hartmann, also a BuzzFlash friend, has been hosting Bernie Sanders in a Friday morning radio segment, "Brunch with Bernie." Sanders incisively states the case for a budget that benefits all Americans, but is generally ignored by the corporate mainstream media while it crowned the radical Paul Ryan as someone presenting a "bold, courgaeous" budget.

Why is the voice of Bernie Sanders not given at least equal due in the mass media?

"Instead of ending Medicare as we know it and making savage cuts to community health centers and children's health care programs, we must ask the top 2 percent of income earners, who currently pay the lowest upper-income tax rate on record, to start paying their fair share of taxes."

That is a seemingly reasonable statement by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in a commentary his office submitted to BuzzFlash at Truthout.

Yet, while Sanders is getting a bit more time on cable television to make his case for a budget that recognizes the need for upper-crust tax revenue increases and a reduction in the military budget, he is hardly a regular guest on national Sunday morning political talk shows. It is from these programs that much of the political punditry framework, known as "conventional wisdom," is set for public policy debates.

The corporate mainstream media generally "balances" the Ayn Rand extremism of Paul Ryan, for example, with a so-called "centrist" Democrat.

Sanders has proven himself a powerful voice for an alternative frame to look at America's budget, one that supports the services Americans want, while reducing the deficit by rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy and reining in the military-industrial complex.

In that context, Sanders is straightforward in asserting that enriching the wealthy and corporations through lower taxes is a major contributor to the high deficit:

Amazingly, while the Republican budget writers waged a vicious and unprecedented attack on the needs of working families, they do not ask the wealthiest people in this country, whose tax rates are now the lowest on record, to contribute one dime more for deficit reduction. Nor do they propose to do away with any of the loopholes that enable extremely profitable corporations (like General Electric, Bank of America, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and many more) to pay little or no federal income taxes. Quite the contrary! The Republican budget actually provides $1 trillion more in tax breaks over the next 10 years for the very rich.

Could it be that the corporate mainstream media generally shies away from Sanders because he threatens the gluttonous incomes of the corporations and people who own most of the mass press in America?

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