Harvard Study Confirms The Media Tore Down Clinton, Built Up Trump And Sanders

[pnwmom]

Last edited Sun Jun 19, 2016, 03:18 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.good.is/articles/hillary-clinton-negative-press

It’s no secret that, from the moment she announced her candidacy back in April 2015, Hillary Clinton has been bludgeoned by negative media coverage. The email server; the Wall Street speaking fees; the attacks from both Trump and Sanders. I’ve debated with people who legitimately fear she will be imprisoned before the election. Some, despite the venomous dismissal of my rolling eyes, have called her a murderer. Others: an old woman, a plutocrat, a crook, abused by her husband, no backbone to speak of. But if you’ve suspected that there’s a reason people are saying these things—perhaps parroting disproportionately negative stories they’ve consumed in the media over the past year-and-a-half—it turns out you’re right.

A new report released this week by Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy found Clinton has received far more negative coverage than any other candidate in the race thus far. The study was based on an analysis of news statements from CBS, Fox, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

Much of the negative coverage has resulted from her perma-frontrunner status. Findings showed the combined effect of those stories was the equivalent of “millions of dollars in attack ads.” Clinton started out 60 percentage points ahead of Bernie Sanders. But 60 percent became 40, which, by the end of 2015, became 25. The media eventually covered the Democratic primary as a David vs. Goliath narrative. Each poll that showed a closing gap between Sanders and Clinton became a negative story for her.

I asked Tim Groeling, Chair of the UCLA Department of Communications Studies, if the extent of Clinton’s negative coverage (which hovered around three bad stories to each good one for most of 2015) was a surprise. “The handicapped horse-race coverage (where Trump did far better than most analysts expected, Sanders did better, and Clinton had a much harder time than predicted) seems to explain most of the patterns observed here,” he told me. “When a candidate does better than expected, reporters tend to write stories explaining why the candidate did better than expected, which tend to focus on positive characteristics. When they do worse than expected, the stories catalog their faults in an attempt to explain that.”

SNIP

[Lil Missy]

1. no kidding. The media was easy on Bernie - he's never survive a GE race.

[politicaljunkie41910]

3. Bernie struggled in his debates with Hillary. All that hand waving everytime Hillary received a

question got to be tiresome real quick. And he was just as scripted as Marco Rubio. Bernie was determined to make the same talking points in every debate regardless of the questioned asked.

[MADem]

25. He still has not been vetted. nt

[AgadorSparticus]

56. No. He hasn't. And that is a pretty big point.

[Gothmog]

81. The silly match up polls cited by Sanders are meaningless because Sanders had not been vetted

These match up polls are worthless but they are all that Sanders has to make the electablity argument. Here is a good thread talking about these polls http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511038010

The reliance on these polls by Sanders supporters amuse me. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/harrys-guide-to-2016-election-polls/

Ignore hypothetical matchups in primary season – they also measure nothing. General election polls before and during the primary season have a very wide margin of error. That’s especially the case for candidates who aren’t even in the race and therefore haven’t been treated to the onslaught of skeptical media coverage usually associated with being the candidate.

Sanders supporters have to rely on these worthless polls because it is clear that Sanders is not viable in a general election where the Kochs will be spending $887 million and the RNC candidate may spend an additional billion dollars.

No one should rely on hypo match up type polls in selecting a nominee at this stage of the race. Sanders would be a very weak general election candidate

[riversedge]

82. Thanks for your post. Good information.

[AgadorSparticus]

85. This should be posted on a thread of us own. Thanks for sharing. Nt

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. That has been true for a couple of decades.

[eastwestdem]

40. You're right, it was so obvious to anyone who paid attention. nt

[Hortensis]

47. Well, it's nice to have yet another study confirming it.

Sure it was obvious. Sensible people already knew this simply from years of observation. Not just of 2015; it's been going on since the early 1990s.

But this forum has hundreds who also "pay attention" and nevertheless "know" the MSM are in Hillary's pocket. They will believe that as long as they want to, forever probably, and this study will change nothing for them.

But it was refreshing to see a thread title speaking truth on this for once, instead of the usual deluded garbage.

Though 28 percent of Clinton’s coverage was about issues, 84 percent of those stories were negative in tone. To compare, Trump only notched 12 percent on issues, with 43 percent negative in tone. That’s much heavier accountability for the Democratic nominee in a race that received less than half the coverage of the Republican contest.

[reformist2]

4. So "each poll that showed a closing gap" counted as a negative story? LOL!

Sorry, that is ridiculous.

[Go Vols]

5. "Sanders did suffer from a lack of coverage, especially in the beginning, the researchers found."

[pnwmom]

6. In the beginning. But he benefited from the millions effectively spent on attacks

against Hillary Clinton.

When Bernie did get coverage, very little of it was negative. If he had been the front-runner that would not have been the case.

[SheenaR]

10. Good thing Time Magazine

debunked the theory that he went and attacked Clinton, but rather how he WAS attacked and responded in kind. But whatever fits your daily narrative mom

[pnwmom]

13. Link, please. n/t

[SheenaR]

21. here

http://time.com/bernie-sanders-2016-campaign/

If Sanders had promised never to go negative, no Clinton had ever done so. The hammer fell during the first debate in October. When a moderator asked Clinton if Sanders had a tough enough record on guns, she pounced. “No, not at all,” Clinton said of her rival, who represents a mostly rural state. Months later, Sanders still smarts over the constant attacks about guns.“The idea that I am being called a tool of the NRA, a supporter of the NRA, is really quite outrageous,” he says.

Soon the hits from Clinton’s boosters were relentless. Sanders’ aides expected them, but the candidate’s shock at the Clintons’ hard-nosed politics was unmistakable. The tactics went against his hopes for a high-­minded campaign fought on issues, not on microfiche or her email practices. And as Sanders’ crowds grew, so did his poll numbers and contributions from small donors. And so did the Clinton attacks.

In fact, the Clinton machine was just warming up. Clinton researchers had spent months digging into Sanders’ vulnerabilities—standard operating procedure for any modern campaign—and countless outside allies offered their binders of research too. There was plenty to go around: he was once ambivalent about South American socialist dictatorships, he honeymooned in the Soviet Union, he voted against the Wall Street bailout that ultimately helped U.S. autoworkers and he had been critical of Barack Obama’s first term. Clinton tagged Sanders for being AWOL during the fight for health care in 1993 and ’94, despite plenty of TV footage and photography to the contrary. Fair or not, the onslaught left Sanders upset; he had never faced this kind of scrutiny. “We know a lot of stuff has been leaked into the papers which are lies and distortions,” Sanders says. “Their response is, ‘Look, that’s the world we live in, that’s what you gotta do.’ I understand that. I don’t think that’s what you gotta do.”


Enjoy your night

[Silver_Witch]

27. Excellent post...

I notice you got crickets as response after being asked to prove it...proof seems to silence the supports.

[lakeguy]

44. here, i'll help pnw out with that...

sorry, my bad for lying about bernie. again.

[Lord Magus]

35. That's an "attack"? Seriously?

Saying that Bernie has a weak record on guns is not an attack, it's just the truth. And neither Hillary nor anyone with her campaign brought up any of those so-called "attacks" listed.

[Fuddnik]

52. ?

[AgadorSparticus]

61. So, according to the op, the media clearly favored trump and Bernie

Bernie BENEFITTED from the initial media preference. Hillary responds by attacking Bernie. As a shrewd politician, isn't that what is kind of expected? And it wasn't a jugular attack. She was apparently only warming up.

Emotions aside, it makes me wonder if he was that upset over the swipes that he got from Hillary, what is he going to do when he is fully vetted and faces the onslaught of the Republican propaganda machine? What I see in Bernie is that he is an honest man. And I can truly appreciate that. But a good, honest man doesn't make effective politicians.

This is not Hillary's first rodeo. But it sure is Bernie's first and it is evident in his actions and reactions. He made some big missteps in this election cycle that really cost him. I love the message he brought but he truly is an idealist with no formidable plan to bring it to fruition. While I can appreciate the idealism, I miss the pragmatism as he spends so much time disparaging the democratic establishment. It leaves me to wonder WHO he plans to work with to bring this revolution?

[Go Vols]

93. +1

[YouDig]

96. Hilarious. Bernie wanted a campaign fought over issues, but didn't want to talk about gun control.

I guess he doesn't consider that an "issue".

[ciaobaby]

17. unless the Bernie coverage was on Hillary's station, MSNBC - then it was all negative !

[Stofrk]

7. And what happened after the beginning?

?

[Go Vols]

11. I was quoting the study

what happened after might be in there too.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. Gosh..... I didn't notice.

And in the middle and at "the end" too.

[Go Vols]

12. yep

[teamster633]

66. Which was greatly offset by the fact...

...that the first primary was held in one of the few places where anyone had even heard of Bernie. His surprising victory there propelled him into relevance on the national scene.

[Red Mountain]

74. Any indication how many stories there were for each candidate in the study?

[mcar]

8. And people still insist the media is in HRC's camp

[BreakfastClub]

16. I know, it's so ridiculous! People actually post negative articles about Hillary

that are published in the Wall Street Journal, and I'm like...hello? I thought she was in the back pocket of Wall Street?!? Why in the hell is the WSJ attacking her if they love her so much? They never have an answer to that because it makes no sense.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. She gonna win anyway

[BreakfastClub]

15. Yep, it is beyond obvious that Hillary gets horrible coverage. It's shameful, really,

the way the news media treat her. And Bernie was treated like a prince in comparison. He was never vetted, never criticized, and it was constantly reported that he was "catching up," and that Hillary couldn't "seal the deal," which was nonsense. Some of it is plain old-fashioned sexism, but it also has to do with the fact that the right wing has been tearing Hillary apart for over 20 years. It's too bad that anyone on the left bought into that garbage, but they did. It's quite a disappointment to me. I guess I thought our side had more common sense. I was wrong.

[ciaobaby]

18. You should have been tuned in to MSNBC -

the Bernie hate was fast and furious - once they stopped ignoring him.

[pnwmom]

22. Not according to this study. Where is your evidence? nt

[ciaobaby]

23. here you go - take your time.......

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/29/media-fundraisers-presidential/
http://cnsnews.com/commentary/l-brent-bozell-iii/comcast-rolls-over-hillaryhttp://www.mediaite.com/tv/game-changed-msnbc-throws-bernie-into-a-fire-hillary-into-a-pillow-fight/http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/tell-msnbc-you-will-stophttp://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/nearly-11000-sign-petition-demanding-msnbc-suspend-chris-matthews-for-shilling-for-hillary-clinton/http://www.liberalamerica.org/2016/02/25/hardball-host-may-have-to-answer-for-his-clinton-bias/http://randomnerds.com/one-of-hillary-clintons-biggest-donors-owns-cnn-hows-that-fair/CNN is owned by Time Warner. Time Warner is a top 10 donator of Hillary Clintons campaign (https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00000019&cycle=Career

NBC is owned by Charter. Here's an excellent little write up on their ties as well: http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2015/11/comcast-nbc-cnbc-and-msnbc-endorses.html

[pnwmom]

24. Petitions and complaints don't provide evidence. And you should be aware that The Intercept

is a libertarian site.

In any case, MSNBC was included in the Harvard study. And the overall results STILL show that there was far more negative coverage about Hillary.

[ciaobaby]

28. ok - fine- you didn't like the Intercept for some random reason

Hillary's connection to media is well documented. Keep your blinders on if that's what gets you through the day.

I'll go back to my initial reaction - maybe there are just more negatives out there to cover.
And honestly, I would have just a bit of respect for her if she would release the transcripts of the wall street speeches.
She could do it now that she is the "presumptive" nominee, IF she had nothing to hide.

[pnwmom]

30. You're the one with blinders. The Harvard study included MSNBC and even with

Last edited Sun Jun 19, 2016, 03:14 AM - Edit history (1)

MSNBC's coverage included, there were far more negative attacks against Hillary than against Bernie.

And no, it was not because there were more negatives to cover. There were many more stories they COULD have produced about Bernie -- such as asking more questions about his continuing reluctance to release multiple years of tax returns. Or about the oddities of his FEC forms, and the fact that he was the only Democrat to receive warning letters from the FEC.

Hillary consistently said she'd release her transcripts if all the opposing candidates, including the Rethugs, agreed to do this. That didn't happen.

But she has released 30 years of tax returns, more than any other candidate ever. Bernie, despite all his empty promises, has only released a single year.

How come? He promised he'd release more and he hasn't suspended his campaign. So why didn't he keep his firm promise?

[ciaobaby]

32. The one and only reason Hillary won't release the transcripts is because they are damaging to her.

Tax returns mean nothing to me.
All politicians have complicated returns and a plethora of tax consultants to clean the whole mess up.
But the speeches she gave to wall street will tell us all what she is really about.
If she believes wall street needs to be more heavily regulated and are guilty of greed and corruption she needs to say so. Instead, she will find any reason she can not to tell us what is said behind closed doors.
Thus, the reason the great percentage of democrats do NOT TRUST HER.

As for MSNBC's coverage of Hillary versus Bernie, if you had not watched their coverage, which I don't believe, then you don't really know. I, on the other hand did watch, and was offended by the lopsided, ugly, vindictive, and biased negative coverage of Bernie.
i.e - Jonathan Capehart. What a colossal mess that was. But MSNBC was all on board.

[pnwmom]

34. Tax returns are far more important than speeches. Trump's tax returns would reveal

things about his businesses that we'd never find out any other way.

But Trump will probably continue to refuse to release them, and he could point to Bernie as the precedent.

[Lord Magus]

37. Tax returns are considered a requirement for presidential candidates for a reason.

They tell you a lot about the business dealings of the candidate and about whether they're paying anywhere close to their fair share.

On the other hand the notion that some meaningless speeches "will tell us all what she is really about" is just plain silly.

As for MSNBC, your claims are completely and utterly baseless. As the campaign went on, for example, it became increasingly obvious that Lawrence O'Donnell was "feeling the Bern" and strongly anti-Hillary. He was constantly hyping up the idea that she can't beat Trump and that Bernie was the Democrats' only hope.

[ciaobaby]

33. and where exactly does it say MSNBC was included. NBC is not the same as MSNBC.

"The study was based on an analysis of news statements from CBS, Fox, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post."

[pnwmom]

36. NBC includes MSNBC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSNBC

[lunamagica]

78. Come on, if you watched you cold see that Hayes and O'Donell were all for Sanders

Rachel was too, until Weaver came up with the win the south anyway" meme. She's sill had several softball interviews with Jane and Sanders -once devoting a whole hour to him.

[Silver_Witch]

29. Did you watch Rachael Maddow and MSNBC?

They love her and support her and are gentle with her.

What world do you live in - seriously and YOU KNOW SHE WON right?

The pouting from the Hillary supporters is amazing and you all should be embarrassed.

[pnwmom]

31. MSNBC was one of the outlets included in the study, which STILL found that

overall there were many more attacks on Hillary.

[Silver_Witch]

89. Oh what total and utter bullshit

Seriously it is complete bunk.

You can find any article anywhere that will prove anything. I watch and I can promise you the lack of any "attacks" on Bernie were due to the UTTER and complete SHUT-out of coverage.

Why are you watching MSNBC if they are attacking St. Hillary?

[pnwmom]

90. Hillary was getting more negative coverage anywhere. Apparently no one should

be watching any news shows, in your opinion.

[Silver_Witch]

91. And yet she won?

Weird - all that "negativity" and she still won.

I call bullship on the entire story.

[pnwmom]

92. Winning is much more about GOTV than big rallies. So she won. n/t

[Lord Magus]

38. Rachel Maddow is only the best journalist currently on American TV.

If you're saying there's been something wrong with her election coverage, give me a break.

[Silver_Witch]

88. I am saying there was something VERY wrong with her coverage.

Sorry no breaks for you my friend.

[LiberalFighter]

57. Sure if all you watch is Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

There is a lot more segments on MSNBC then just her. Even then she has been hard on Clinton too.

[insta8er]

19. I think this just confirms it, there are alternate universes..and they coexist in some people's mind

[DavidDvorkin]

20. I posted this study here on Wednesday

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512188419

And it was immediately dismissed as nonsense. Denial by Sanders supporters persists.

[Silver_Witch]

26. Hahahahah....seriously - or my that is a snort!!!

[Lord Magus]

39. So you're delusional, then?

Because it's been abundantly clear for a long time that the media hates the Clintons.

[Eko]

41. I tend not to post scientific reports

when they haven't been peer reviewed yet. Defeats the purpose of saying they are scientific reports.

[pnwmom]

42. The Shorenstein Center subscribes to Harvard's Open Access policy

in publishing its research.

This allows for transparency, free access, and the ability of any other researchers to freely critique its scholarly articles.

http://shorensteincenter.org/research-publications/open-access-policy/

Shorenstein Center Open Access Policy Affirmation

The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is actively committed to the openness of information relevant to the public. This value is embodied in the traditions of a free press, protected under the First Amendment, and is consistent with the idea that quality information is vital to the functioning of democracy.

We therefore support and reaffirm Harvard’s Open Access Policy, enacted and implemented by all of the nine individual Harvard faculties all by unanimous or nearly unanimous faculty votes. This includes an affirmative vote by the Harvard Kennedy School, under which the Shorenstein Center operates.

Harvard has pioneered measures to promote open access and move toward a publishing system that is in keeping with the University’s goals of promoting the civic good. One of these measures is an open-access policy that has the effect of allowing open distribution of research articles.

The Shorenstein Center is committed to advancing these university-wide goals, and has a long-established tradition of offering all research materials produced by the Center and its Fellows free to the public on its website. Further, we will provide an electronic copy of the author’s final version of each scholarly article to the appropriate representative of the Provost’s Office, to be deposited into the open Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) repository.

Each member of the Shorenstein Center grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles. More specifically, each member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit, and to authorize others to do the same. The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the Shorenstein Center except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Provost or Provost’s designate will waive application of the license for a particular article or delay access for a specified period of time upon express direction by member.

[Eko]

43. Has zero bearing

on being a peer reviewed study. Zero.

[Buzz cook]

45. A report or paper doesn't have to be peer reviewed to be scientific

Master and PHD thesus' are not peer reviewed and neither are many of the papers that aren't about specific scientific advances.

Peer review is an expensive and time consuming process.

Basically to be scientific a study just needs to be testable/repeatable. A different person using the same data and methods should arrive at the conclusions, though possibly not the exact same analysis.

A study like this one seems pretty straight forward.

Define negative stories. Count their occurrence over time on a predetermined number of sources.. So it's basically arithmetic.

[pnwmom]

46. Anyone, including other scholarly researchers, has access to the full paper

and is free to review it.

Go ahead.

[Vinca]

48. Well, that's curious since Bernie was considered a fringe candidate at the start of his campaign

and rarely got coverage. I think the media back then was about 85% Trump. Hillary got little coverage because the coronation had already taken place in the minds of the "journalists" and most of the voters. No news there. If Bernie had gotten early coverage he might have done a whole lot better in the red states Hillary won.

[pnwmom]

49. Hillary had had decades of building relationships in the South. Bernie didn't spend

any time there until after Iowa -- and it showed.

For example, Hillary went to Louisiana and Texas after Katrina. She introduced a bill in Congress to set up a 911 style commission to figure out what went wrong. And when Congress failed to pass it, she re-introduced it the next year. And when that didn't pass, ministers in the south organized their own commission, and invited her down to testify.

Getting some more TV coverage wouldn't have outweighed the decades of effort Hillary had spent in the south -- what you call "the red states."

Bernie had his share of red states, too, as you know -- most of them caucus states. But they were much smaller states, population-wise, and much less important to the election.

[Vinca]

60. The sad part is that even though Hillary got more votes than Bernie, a good chunk of them are in

the red states and will amount to jack squat in the general election. Even with Trump, the GOP is bound to win most of them. Oh, well. It's too late now. The die is cast for good or bad. I sure wish her opponent was halfway sane just in case.

[pnwmom]

64. By dismissing the southern primaries, you're making the same mistake Bernie made.

Obama did very well with voters in the south, and also in the rest of the states. He did it with a diverse coalition of voters very similar to those going for Hillary.

Bernie likes to pretend Hillary ONLY did well in the South. The truth is that the southern states were the first indication -- after the +95% WHITE states in the first primaries -- of how well Hillary would do in large, diverse states with significant populations of African American and/or Latino voters.

She went on to do well in all the large, diverse states in the rest of the country, too; losing only in Michigan, and that was a squeaker.

Bernie, on the other hand, earned most of his wins in caucus states -- which, with the exception of Washington, tended to be low population, rural states. And they would mean jack squat in the election.

African American and Latino voters, and women, don't only live in the South. And they determined the primaries -- and will determine the general.

[NurseJackie]

50. ... and still they complain about how poorly Bernie was treated.

This just confirms what I'd been observing all along ... namely, that "the media" had been treating Bernie very gently. This would have been over much sooner if the media had done a little digging (not hard to do) and just mentioned (in passing) the kinds of things that the GOP would have not hesitated to talk about.

He was lucky ... and he was given a helping hand by the media.

[HooptieWagon]

51. All self-inflicted.

The media didn't maker her be corrupt or handle classified information sloppily. The media didn't make her obstruct FBI investigations or lie. The media reported. If Hillary doesn't like 'negative' reporting, then she shouldn't do things that create it.

[stevenleser]

67. Nope, a glimmer maybe, but the rest inflated by the media just like you just did. nt

[Iliyah]

53. WOW, rocket science conclusion . . . . . . . . .

[Mike Nelson]

54. She does get the worst media attention...

... makes her win nicer. It was never going to be a "coronation" and the reporting of such was negative, itself. Hillary's "unpopularity" rating is very good, considering...

[cwydro]

55. K and r.

Thanks for posting!

[oasis]

58. 100 %. Agree.

[AgingAmerican]

59. What a pant load

You forget all those 'panels' on MSNBC? 4 or 5 Hillary supporters and zero Sanders supporters ranting and raging about Bernie Day in day out.

Pure fiction

[AgadorSparticus]

62. Harvard studies don't matter now because of your take on "panels" on msnbc?

[JCanete]

63. Whatever. Many of those stories treated her as the perma-front-runner and ignored the fact that she

had a viable challenger. So what if they were overall negative. That's part of the fucking game, especially since all of the coverage never focused on the real shit, which made them a rallying cry for her supporters, not effective hit-pieces that eroded her support. And that has been the game for a long time. Target fairly corporate democratic candidates ... the main-stream ones... and paint them as the far left. What all that noise has done is to effectively help entrench the Clintons as the face of the Democratic party, and it has galvanized us to their defense, even while they have continued in their quiet way, to do for powerful interests.

For that matter, how this study made determinations about what is negative and what is not is suspect. Saying for instance, that white voters propel Sanders over the top in such and such state, or Sanders wins predominantly white voter states like...Hawaii, IS negative. It is coloring of the narrative, subtly suggestive of who he is the candidate of and for. But generally the most powerful weapon was silence, which this study you site entirely corroborates. Ignoring him as a candidate and constantly hammering home that Clinton had basically already locked up the nomination as early as after South Carolina, because the media loved counting the pledges of superdelegates, was devastatingly effective.

I'm pretty shocked that anybody could post in this thread without acknowledging that coverage gap. How does Sanders do as well as he does and still rate the lowest coverage of all candidates, by far? How do you then try to turn this story into how the media favored him over Clinton? You've got to know deep down that that is utter bullshit right?

[pnwmom]

65. The stories about Benghazi and email played into the false theme

that the Repubs have been spreading for decades, that she is less truthful and trustworthy than they are -- even though the research of fact-checkers shows otherwise.

These kinds of attacks have led to her unfavorables being higher over the years. Too many people subscribe to the "where there's smoke, there must be fire" theory of politics. If you are surrounded by lots of attackers tossing smoke bombs, then you must be guilty of something.

Bernie started out with low coverage, but that changed as soon as New Hampshire. And then his coverage overall was much more positive than Hillary's. He got plenty of media attention with his large rallies. But they didn't lead to more votes in states with large groups of diverse voters.

[stevenleser]

70. Yeah that posters contentions are so ridiculous I can't believe they were actually serious.

All of a sudden its no big deal if the media's coverage of a candidate is negative.

That is what that person was trying to sell.

[JCanete]

75. And that is not what I'm trying to sell. If you dont' have a counter-message machine

you are fucked of course. When you have your own media wing though, to help show how ridiculous and baseless the attacks on your candidate are, that's pretty effective at getting your supporters to hold the line.

[JCanete]

73. They have absolutely solidified a right-wing against her. They have not done anything but to

teflon her against criticism in certain democratic circles.

I'm sorry, I was also paying attention to the news and how Bernie's victories were being covered in real time. His biggest strength, according to your article was when they were covering issues, where he got mostly positive coverage, but that was 7 percent of his coverage. The chart is right there. His overall coverage during the election is abysmal. He did get covered on "some" of those rallies, and it was always selective when they tuned in. Hell, at times they wouldn't even cover his victory speech after he'd win a state. They'd rather shoot an empty podium waiting for trump to arrive. Yes, the media wanted to gin up a horse race, at the times when Hillary seemed to be a lock. At other times, it did Sanders no favors and how it characterized his wins was pretty shameful.

[stevenleser]

69. "So what if they were overall negative" your post went off the rails right there.

It's not "so what".

Overall negative is a big deal.

Any seasoned political operative would rather have a lot less coverage than "overall negative".

Trying to split hairs over what is negative or not doesn't do anything for what you are trying to say.

[JCanete]

72. When it comes to the primary, if you are portraying her as the only candidate it does not matter.

Trumps coverage was overall negative too. The media basically propelled him into front-runner status with all that coverage anyway, or do you deny that.

It isn't true that negative coverage is worse than no coverage. It's really really stupid in fact. There is a reason why there's a meme "first they ignore you" "then they laugh at you" "then they attack you." If you're still in the ignore territory they don't even need to bother attacking you.

[stevenleser]

83. Talk about forcing a talking point. Hillary was the presumptive frontrunner in 2008 too.

Obama won despite all of that.

Pithy sayings like "first they ignore you..." don't mean anything. Both sides often laugh at each other as they did here during the primaries many times. That doesnt mean both sides win.

[JCanete]

84. I like how you won't refute the damage of no coverage,

you'll just move on to characterizing what I said was "pithy." If you don't like that time-honored quote fine, but give me a break with actually peddling that no coverage is better than negative coverage, or that all negative coverage operates in the same way.

And the Obama vs. Hillary race was an entirely different story. Sure, the party establishment wanted Hillary, but they were already grooming Obama for a big future in the democratic party. He was hardly an outsider. When he started gaining traction, the media was all on board, and why not ... he wasn't threatening to any of the interests that they are beholden to. So in a safe race between two very similar candidates when it comes to policy, he did not have a machinery interested in keeping him out of the lime-light. He got huge coverage in fact. He also didn't have a unified establishment against him. People were free to outwardly back who they wanted, not entirely without retaliation, but it was a matter of picking between two establishment candidates. Nobody was going to be blacklisted.

[stevenleser]

86. I'm not refuting it because its untrue on its face. Bernie got plenty of votes from the first caucus

and primary onward. There is zero evidence Bernie lost votes from a lack of coverage. He barely lost Iowa and then won New Hampshire. Where is your evidence that he was so unknown that a lack of enough coverage hurt him.

It doesnt exist. Its completely unsupported nonsense.

And here we go again with silliness from you. I said less coverage was better than negative coverage. And you change that to a straw man "No coverage is better than negative coverage"

That has been typical of your behavior from the beginning of this discussion. Silly sayings used as fact, straw men, and other nonsense.

[JCanete]

87. I've got to let it go, off to work and no time, but another time. Thanks for the conversation. nt

[realmirage]

68. Without the clintons we wouldn't have won an election

Since Carter. People have a terrible grasp of reality

[Uncle Joe]

71. The Harvard Study is flawed making the assumption that Bernie did poorly in the first debate

despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it was corporate media conglomerate pundit propaganda or "negative coverage" over the following days that put forth this myth or frame and the Harvard Study sucked it up as reality.

CNN denigrated its own collaboration with Facebook when the judgment results from the first debate didn't come in as they had hoped.

All online polls and real time focus groups had Bernie as the clear winner of the first debate.

As for Hillary's negative coverage most of it was due to her private server issues and this was a major self-inflicted wound, not a "mole hill" as this Harvard Study proclaims it be.

I do agree with this Study that the corporate media conglomerates promoted Trump long before his poll numbers warranted such treatment with saturation coverage but this tactic was aimed at sucking up populist oxygen and was thus an indirect attack against Bernie.

That's why the corporate media conglomerates simultaneously ignored coverage of Bernie and his message for most all of last year per the Tyndall Report.

Thanks for the thread, pnwmom.

[pnwmom]

77. Online, self-selected polls are worth the paper they're printed on.

That is, nothing.

[Uncle Joe]

79. Conflict of interest laden commentary from corporate media conglomerate pundits

espousing their propaganda for days on end after a debate has great influential power but is worth nothing insofar as the best interests of the people are concerned.

[lunamagica]

76. That was always obvious to anyone paying attention

[Gothmog]

80. That is a very interesting study

Sanders was not vetted at all by the media in part because no one in the media thought that he had a chance and the media was invested in making pretend that there was a true horse race between Sanders and Clinton. Sanders never had a realistic chance of being the nominee and so the press did not worry about vetting him

[Sheepshank]

94. It felt like it...all Primary season long.

Thanks for the comfirmation

[Orsino]

95. So the media built up Sanders, rather than dismissing him as a fringe candidate?

Is this in the universe where Kal-El landed on a Russian farm?

[pnwmom]

97. No, they leveled a disproportionate number of attacks against Hillary.

They like a horserace.