MSNBC Is the Most Influential Network Among Liberals--And It's Ignoring Bernie Sanders [View all]

[Uncle Joe]

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Even so, MSNBC is positioned to have an outsized influence on the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. According to the Norman Lear Center, liberals watch MSNBC at (respectively) three and 10 times the rate of more moderate and conservative viewers. After Fox News, MSNBC is the most-watched cable news network, beating out CNN. What’s more, the median age of MSNBC’s audience is 65—and older voters turn out in high numbers in primary contests.

To understand how MSNBC may be shaping the 2020 election, In These Times analyzed the network’s August and September coverage of the Democratic presidential contest’s leading candidates—Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. We focused on the network’s flagship primetime shows: The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, All In with Chris Hayes, The Beat with Ari Melber, Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and The Rachel Maddow Show.

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Sanders and Warren released, respectively, eight and 10 detailed policy plans over this two-month period, covering topics from investing in rural America, empowering indigenous people, getting to 100% renewable energy and muzzling corporate lobbyists (Warren) to workplace democracy, a Green New Deal, housing for all and a wealth tax (Sanders). Most of these 18 plans were ignored by MSNBC, and only two were discussed in any depth: Hayes interviewed Sanders about his August 22 Green New Deal plan and Maddow interviewed Warren about her September 16 anti-corruption plan. (Biden, for his part, introduced zero plans.)

Instead, MSNBC’s coverage builds around incoming poll results, which may be cause for concern. Social scientists have long been critical of the way polls can shape news coverage, as poll coverage risks calcifying what might otherwise be fleeting shifts in popular opinion. The hosts In These Times analyzed occasionally acknowledged that polls are not always reliable, but relied on them anyway. Only Melber explicitly dismissed polls, saying “they don’t matter right now,” reporting instead on online donation numbers. He was alone in mentioning Sanders’ historic surge in small-dollar donations.

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http://inthesetimes.com/features/msnbc-bernie-sanders-coverage-democratic-primary-media-analysis.html