I wonder if people bother to research their articles anymore? –

 

Neither Donald Trump nor Bernie Sanders would be serious contenders for their respective party’s nominations without the media’s efforts to push them forward.

 

Google the search term “sanders lack . . .” and it autofills “of media coverage” and results in 671,000 hits. A couple of examples here and here. There is more coverage now, but only because of his successes. And the media in almost every case counts every superdelegate in Clinton’s column, without explanation or qualification, in order to fit their story line that Clinton is “far ahead.” (Wednesday’s front page story in the WaPo is a good example). Hillary also banked a lot of superdelegates in 2008, but their loyalty shifted with the momentum of the campaign. How anyone can conclude therefrom that the media are attempting to build Sanders up escapes me.

http://lobelog.com/the-2016-elections-media-equals-mediocrity/#more-33744

The 2016 Elections: Media Equals Mediocrity

by Robert E. Hunter
Whatever else happens this election year—and maybe the best and worst are yet to come—we can already conclude that the media has come fully into its own. The singular verb “is” is used advisedly, rather than the proper verb “are,” for a reason: that for purposes of presidential political campaigns, what has long been called “pack journalism” has become the rule, with few exceptions.
Why such a categorical judgment about the media’s role? Neither Donald Trump nor Bernie Sanders would be serious contenders for their respective party’s nominations without the media’s efforts to push them forward. (Bernie Sanders has not even been a Democrat except by convenience, but, hey, who cares?)
The media makes one basic calculation about its role in presidential politics: there has to be a horserace. Nothing is worse from this perspective than a “slam dunk” presidential nominating process, and there are two ways to achieve this goal. The first is to build someone up out of nowhere; and the second is to tear someone down (maybe the same candidate), again to create “interest,” which is “mother’s milk” to the media just as money is to politics. In the media’s case, it is, put generically, to “sell soap” and to show who’s the real boss in US political life.
Sorry, Mr. and Ms. Media, but like the proverbial baseball umpire, “I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em. “http://lobelog.com/the-2016-elections-media-equals-mediocrity/#more-33744