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Democrats United States Politics

Analysis Shows Andrew Yang Was Snubbed By Mainstream Media in its Coverage (vocal.media) 194

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Scott Santens, writing for Vocal: Back in June of 2019, I tweeted about the latest egregious example of MSNBC excluding Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang from their ongoing coverage of the 2020 Presidential candidates. There had been previous examples, but that was the worst up to that point because they had photos of all 20 candidates who were going to be in the first debates, and instead of including Yang as one of them, they included someone who wasn't even going to be there. I then started to add each new example as a new reply, and that ongoing thread has now been covered over and over again with each new example as a source of entertaining absurdity. It's been covered by traditional media outlets like The Guardian, Vox, and The Hill. It's also been covered by new media like Ethan and Hila Klein of the H3 Podcast for their two million subscribers. I have gotten many requests to put the entire thread in one place outside of Twitter, so this article has been created to meet that request. Each time a new example occurs, I will update the thread on Twitter, and update this page on Vocal too. I have also made a point here of expanding on the thread in a way I can't on Twitter, by expanding the timeline with earlier examples that had occurred before I started my thread. So instead of starting in June, this timeline starts back in March.
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Analysis Shows Andrew Yang Was Snubbed By Mainstream Media in its Coverage More

Analysis Shows Andrew Yang Was Snubbed By Mainstream Media in its Coverage

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  • What? Mainstream media enforces a narrative? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @12:05PM (#59724078)

    Well, I'm just shocked. Here I thought the mainstream media could be a trusted, objective, unbiased source of news.

    Imagine my surprise to find out this is not the case.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by God whale ( 6336978 )
      I only really learned of him until now. Compared to the looney dem candidates he didn't stand a chance. UBI sounds good to the potheads, but it makes sense in the way he describes it.

      Honestly i'd love to see him enter the race in 4 years as a republican. He's an entrepreneur, he's got facts and figures. Those two things alone make him an interesting candidate for the people who have embraced trump

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by spun ( 1352 )

        UBI is a libertarian concept. The idea is for it to replace ALL other social programs. Give $1,000 a month in UBI, get rid of social security, medicare, and food stamps that give far more than $1,000 per month. That's a win for the owning class and a loss for the working and middle classes.

        • Re:What? Mainstream media enforces a narrative? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @01:46PM (#59724558)

          Give $1,000 a month in UBI, get rid of social security, medicare, and food stamps

          Andrew Yang's UBI proposal did not replace SS or Medicare.

          UBI proponents replace SS when they want their proposals to be economically feasible.

          They leave SS alone when they want their proposals to be politically feasible.

          They can't have it both ways.

        • Re:What? Mainstream media enforces a narrative? (Score:5, Informative)

          by colonslash ( 544210 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @02:25PM (#59724720)
          Yang's version of UBI would not have replaced all other social programs.

          It would have stacked with social security, and the social security taxes wouldn't have gone away. With universal healthcare, another one Yang's plans, medicare wouldn't have been an issue, either. People would have to choose between UBI and food stamps, but if they were getting more out of food stamps (and other programs), they could have kept getting those instead of opting for UBI.

          source: https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/

          There are lots of people who are doing just a little bit better than are covered by the social programs like food stamps, but they'd still get UBI. And with UBI, unlike other social programs, people don't have to worry about losing it when their conditions change.

          I'm not sure where this disinformation comes from, but it's probably from the same corporate owned media that snubbed Yang and continue to snub Bernie and Tulsi.

        • Let's look at some of the numbers. There are 255 million American citizens over the age of 18. If you give each of them a UBI of $1000/month (Yang's "Freedom Dividend" proposal), you just spent 3.06 trillion/year.

          But you're replacing Social Security, you say? OK. You just saved $929 billion out of the 3.06 trillion. A lot of retirees are going to be mad at you, though, because the average retirement benefit is $1503, not $1000.

          You're also going to use UBI replace Medicare and Medicaid? Great, you just

          • You're pretending that the UBI must act purely as a tax cut for everyone. If you simply set the tax rates (or even a flat tax) so that it works out neutral (same as present, just in the form of a rebate instead of low taxes) for everyone making over say $30K a year, then you've cut the cost by about 2/3 already without making anyone pay a cent more in effective taxes.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by spun ( 1352 )

              So you are saying, if we do something totally different than Yang's proposal, it wouldn't be as terrible as Yang's proposal?

              Hmmm, yes, this floor is made out of floor.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        But like here on Slashdot, you get mod'ed as troll when you post fact and figures that the moderators do not like. Same with the media. Facts have become the new hate speech.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Of course Yang now has sufficient public identity to make a solid run for the Senate or Congress. In reality they are both far more important that the Presidency, they can strip nearly all powers from the President and issue instructions. They call it the executive in the US but in reality it is just the administrative, all the power is in the congress and senate, they just hide their corruption behind the President, whilst it claims it does it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Gotta be lies. There's an entire swath of /. posters who say there is no MSM, and it's just a creation of republicans and conservatives who are upset they're always losing.

      • Re:What? Mainstream media enforces a narrative? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @01:29PM (#59724492)

        Well the leftists are mad at the same MSM as well so it's not like you can win this game.

        I think Yang is a decent guy and ran a good campaign. But he's a nobody with some crazy ideas who decided to run for president with no prior base or experience in an elected position. How much should he be covered? No matter how much it is, someone will complain because you can't mathematically calculate the objectively appropriate amount of attention.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by cayenne8 ( 626475 )
        From the article:

        It's been covered by traditional media outlets like The Guardian, Vox, and The Hill.

        WTF did "Vox" become a "traditional media outlet"

        I was into the article till I read across this and it lost a good bit of credibility.

        I think Vox ranks right up there with Young Turks as far as coming close to being "traditional medial"...eh?

        Anyway...

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      Let's not use the words of Trump and the right. They are the corporate media. "Mainstream" is a meaningless word in this context, and only serves to hide the reason they report the way they do. The corporate media exists only to serve the interests of the multi-national corporations and the obscenely wealthy who own them.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by penandpaper ( 2463226 )

        >Let's not use the words of Trump and the right

        Why? I really don't understand this reasoning. Would you apply that to any other debate?

        "Let's not use the words of Newtonians. They can't account for relativity and they like vanilla icecream. Unquestioningly evil.".
        "Don't use the words of those Dark Matterites. They believe in an invisible energy expanding the universe! Pure poppycock. "
        "Let's not save that mans life dying from hypothermia. Do you know where that knowledge came from!! You are not a nazi ar

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )
          Crap, you didn't have to add "Unquestionably evil." , "Pure poppycock.", and "You are not a Nazi are you?" to make your point. spun didn't use any language like that, but you had to to make it seem like spun was being unreasonable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      I don't think they have enough discipline to *enforce* a narrative. They just don't have the initiative to explore alternatives.

    • Re:What? Mainstream media enforces a narrative? (Score:4, Informative)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @12:43PM (#59724308) Homepage

      A great example - The New York Times writes a glowing profile of a Youtuber who has 14k subscribers and a single video. [nytimes.com] Carlos Maza is the man who condoned marginalization and deplatforming and tried to get Joe Rogan cancelled. "Fresh from leaving Vox, Carlos Maza, a socialist who calls YouTube âoedeeply unethical and reckless,â is trying to bolster the video siteâ(TM)s left wing." The New York Times gives him a platform despite him being insignificant on Youtube.

      Here's a clip of Intellectual Dark Web member Eric Weinstein talking with the hosts of "The Art of Charm". [youtube.com] He shows them how to read propagandizing media outlets like The New York Times correctly. He also discusses alternative media and online algorithms and their potential for creating bubbles.

    • Well, I'm just shocked. Here I thought the mainstream media could be a trusted, objective, unbiased source of news.

      Imagine my surprise to find out this is not the case.

      More shocking is, the mainstream media here is defined as The New Your Times, BBC, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, ...

      Hold it. Oh, I see the problem:

      TFS mentions The Guardian, Vox, and The Hill, Ethan and Hila Klein of the H3 Podcast, Twitter, Vocal.

      I read the Guardian occasionally, avoid Vox and the Hill, don't do podcasts, don't take Twitter seriously, and what the fuck is "Vocal?"

    • The MSM cannot b e trusted, unlike Rush and Hannity??

      The MSM has a pro-establishment, pro-money way of looking at and prioritizing facts. The non-MSM (esp. on the right) just makes up bullshit

      You cannot expect any lack of bias., You can expect biases to be disclosed and fact-based reporting.

  • I'm shocked that you're shocked (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @12:05PM (#59724084)
    All the major US networks have their favorites and they'll do their best to suppress or ignore any candidate with an opposing platform or viewpoint.

  • That's nothing compared (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CubicleZombie ( 2590497 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @12:08PM (#59724098)

    to what the mainstream media does to Trump. It's like 97% negative coverage. But he's still going to win the election. And you all know it.

    And to all who are going to reply to this and say "Well 97% of everything he does is bad derp derp herpa derp derp", that kind of reasoning is exactly why he's going to win again.

    • Re:That's nothing compared (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @12:52PM (#59724336) Journal

      to what the mainstream media does to Trump. It's like 97% negative coverage. But he's still going to win the election. And you all know it.

      Trump is a prime example of Succes de scandale. [wikipedia.org] He proves again that there is no such thing as bad publicity (if you know how to spin it).

      Andrew Yang suffered from true bad publicity, no publicity.

      • Andrew Yang suffered from true bad publicity, no publicity.

        Not entirely. I just read what was clearly a hit piece on Yang a few days back. It was a feminist claiming he was sexist and racist, as I recall.
        As I said, the entire thing read like a hit piece on him.

      • Andrew Yang suffered from true bad publicity, no publicity.

        Andrew Yang suffered from being a minor gimmick candidate. Nothing more, nothing less. He was a one trick pony with "Free Yang Bucks", and no one was biting on that line.

        Everyone knows that the media has an agenda. We see it every day. The concentrated effort to stop Bernie Sanders on the Dem side. The concentrated effort to hinder Donald Trump on the GOP side. And they DO have a minor candidate that they're doing their best to Astroturf for (Mayor Pete). But in the great scheme of things, no one cared enou

        • Andrew Yang suffered from being a minor gimmick candidate.

          He really wasn't though. The $1k UBI was a hook to talk about a serious issue, what happens when automation sweeps over whole industries. Yang was talking about a lot of issues that politicians SHOULD be thinking about, but simply will not until the wave hits them.

          Oh and BTW, Yang is the only candidate that could have possibly won against Trump. But whatever, the Democrats are way more into posing than winning these days (see: Impeachment).

        • Re:The real reason Yang got no press.... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @03:30PM (#59724972)
          I think that your perception of him this way really just illustrates the exact point this article was making. I actually researched him as a candidate and he has a lot of policy positions that differentiated him from the other candidates. But because the media (or to be fair MSNBC in this case) tried to ignore him as best they could, how would anyone who didn't go out and do their own research become aware of this? I hardly think it's a stretch to imagine that that media companies that are the lapdogs of the DNC wouldn't want voters exposed to the fall outside of the party orthodoxy, just as Fox had very little interest in promoting Ron Paul as a serious candidate and furthering his message when he was running for president in 2008.

          The media doesn't want anyone that's not a part of the party machine. Trump was just so loud and stupid that they couldn't help themselves, and like flies to shit they flock to cover him. I think he showed what it takes to be a successful outsider and break through it all. Maybe Bernie can do it as well, but last time he stooped to kiss the ring in the end and I have a feeling that the same thing will happen all over again.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 )
      From my viewpoint, most of the media reports facts which his supporters like you perceive as persecution. Is there biased media out there? Sure but the fact you lumped 97% as against him already shows your bias not theirs.

      • How to lie with facts (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @04:14PM (#59725204)
        It's really simple actually. You just report only the facts which support your narrative. e.g. The Russian interference in the 2016 election. The media reported every instance, no matter how minuscule, of Russians doing anything (e.g. running social commentary ads) which could have had an influence on how people voted. Meanwhile, never bothering to investigate whether anyone else was doing similar things, in order to first determine whether the Russian activities were in any way a deviation from the norm for people from other countries.

        This is called sampling bias [wikipedia.org]. If I want to smear a restaurant, I can hire a exterminator to covertly inspect it, then report that he found evidence of cockroaches. While strictly true, unless you run the exact same covert inspection on a bunch of other random restaurants, you have no way of knowing if the evidence of roaches found at that one restaurant was indicative of an excessive number of roaches, or is just the average of the number of roaches found in all restaurants (since doorways do not hermetically seal buildings), or if that restaurant actually has fewer roaches than the average restaurant. Facebook and Google abused this in the aftermath of the 2016 election, looking for and reporting only suspicious Russian ads during the timeframe of the election campaigns. That information is useless unless you also do the same inspection for such ads from all sources, then compare numbers.

        Unless you first determine a baseline incident rate for your methodology, you cannot conclude whether an incident rate you find in a specific subgroup is high, normal, or low.

        The media abuse this all the time [ourworldindata.org]. They vastly overreport deaths from terrorism and homicide compared to other causes. If you have a general sense of unease, that we live in a dangerous society where you're at high risk of being randomly murdered, that's why. You're actually far more likely to kill yourself in a car accident or drug overdose or suicide, or eating poorly, or not exercising. But because of the media selectively reporting only certain facts, they've caused you to create a skewed worldview which you think homicide, or even terrorism (LOL) is the biggest risk factor.

        Perhaps the most severe example of a wrongfully manufactured mistaken belief due to the media selectively reporting facts is the stereotype against young unmarried males near children. People see a young male near children, and they automatically assume they're there to kidnap the child. Because the media grossly overreport incidents of child abductions by strangers. Every report is true - it really happened. But the rate at which they're reported far, far, exceeds the actual incident rate in real life. The vast majority of missing children cases are simply kids getting lost, or running away [pollyklaas.org]. About 9% are kidnapped by a relative. The stereotypical child kidnapping by a stranger only accounts for about 0.01% of missing child cases. Yet it's so over-reported by the media that it's created a stereotype where every young single male has to walk on tiptoes every time they're alone with children.

        I think Trump is an idiot, and will be voting however I can to get him out of office this year. But I absolutely agree with his supporters that he suffers from persecution by the media. Overreporting of things which cast him in a negative light, underreporting of things which cast him in a positive light. All true and factual of course. The lie is in the rate at which these things are reported not aligning with the frequency at which they occur.
    • Perhaps the coverage is negative because of his comments and actions? stfu with your moronic crap.

    • Fairly sure Trump is like a loaf of stale bread thinking it's safe from being eaten, when we decide instead of toast we're having pain perdu (or french toast) instead.

      Still gets eaten.

  • What if there's no such thing as "mainstream" media? What if there's just this popular media company, that popular media company, etc. That MSNBC happened to disfavor some particular candidate for some particular office, is that really surprising? You wouldn't be surprised if FOX turned out to have a bias, would you?

    You don't even have to reach for a cynical explanation. Sometimes it's about the advertising division, but every media company is going to have an editorial board and the people there are going

  • I'm still waiting on the expose on how the media totally snubbed the candidacy ofVermin Supreme [google.com]. The fix is totally in!

  • On how the mainstream media are bad. They hide information. They conspire. They hype and dramatize. They get facts wrong and aren't sorry about it. They're shallow. All their emotions are fake except the negative, childish ones. They're repetitive. They look down on their audience. They make up sources and report rumors. They pretend. And they don't care what damage they cause or who gets hurt by it.

  • Yang is not a drama queen (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BishopBerkeley ( 734647 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @12:36PM (#59724276) Journal
    That’s why he was snubbed! He speaks calmly, and he seeks to bring clarity to issues as a good scientist typically seeks to do. The media don’t want that. People don’t want that. Just look at how briskly trump’s drama sells. It’s disgusting.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 )
      Trump is actually quite intelligent and calculating, and knows what he wants to accomplish - and does so. He also knows how to push buttons and play the game and uses drama to his own advantage. The fact the media falls for it time and again shows where the real intellectuals reside - and it's not in the media.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by CajunArson ( 465943 )

      You'll note that on multiple occasions during the debates Yang basically said that instead of the usual Orange-Man-Hitler [oh and anyone who voted for him is Hitler too] koolaid we are supposed to drink, he pointed out that there are reasons WHY Trump got elected and that the Democrats ought to look at addressing those reasons if they want to succeed.

      I don't agree with his policies but it was refreshing to see somebody who wasn't on stage to call millions of people racists because they didn't pass an arbitr

    • That’s why he was snubbed! He speaks calmly, and he seeks to bring clarity to issues as a good scientist typically seeks to do. The media don’t want that. People don’t want that. Just look at how briskly trump’s drama sells. It’s disgusting.

      Clicks and Likes are what is valued in the 21st Century, not facts. And Attention Whore is a valid profession.

      That "disgusting" problem is hardly confined to politics.

    • ....but both those candidates have gotten enormous pushes from the media and the DNC. Because they are centrist hacks.

  • Coverage is far from equal (Score:3)

    by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @12:40PM (#59724298)

    There is not much fair and balanced about our media. As they all rant and rave about Trump being good or bad, they are missing the other 99% of things that affect all of us in our daily lives. For the most part these news shows have become soap operas. In the midst of their daytime stories Yang was hardly covered and Gabbard smeared as a Russian agent.

    It is good for the people to see all of the choices no matter how boring they may be. There is nothing wrong with a boring leader. There is no reason the people need to hear the back and forth from these same republicans and democrats on repeat. That is not news, that's drama. Unfortunately these shows and media corporations are driven by ratings. Keeping the drama turned up is all that matters to them. This is nothing more than a filter bubble feedback loop.

    This type of news is not helpful for any sane person and certainly does not lead to reasonable conversation's about reality.

    --
    To ride well to hounds is simply a diversion. - Daisy Goodwin

  • Even fence-sitters like The Hill are starting to call out media/political collusion. e.g. : https://youtu.be/ecg6oG9bfC4 [youtu.be]

    But, hey, War is fantastic for cable news ratings. No conflict of interest there!

    cf. Project Mockingbird

  • We need ... (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @01:22PM (#59724464)

    ... a shorter election cycle. Which would give the MSM less time to screw with (and profit from) the campaigning. This isn't the 19th century any more. Presidential candidates don't need to visit each state on horseback. Look at how the UK handles elections. Granted, it's a different system, where they can be called on short notice. But ours lends itself to the media gatekeepers milking the candidates for many millions of dollars to buy ad time. And often they have to begin a year in advance. The need to keep an advertising campaign financed for such a long period of time drives the massive fundraising efforts. And associated buying and selling of favors.

    Screw Iowa with their "we gotta be first" bullshit. Everyone hold their primaries and caucuses at one time. Two weeks to collect the states' votes and select party candidates. Then hold the general election.

    • Parliamentary systems are much better suited to extremely short elections - but, yeah. The duration of US presidential campaigning is ridiculous.

      • We don’t need a parliamentary system for fast elections. We don’t even need a primary. Simply use ranked choice voting, abolish registration under any party, Get rid of the moronic electoral college, and everyone gets an equal say with no spoilers. We could be done in a month like a normal country.
  • I love hearing the media talk about how the remaining candidates are all white. Uhh - there is still Tulsi, a Pacific Islander, up there... But she deigned to call our St. Hillary so she must be ignored completely.

  • If this were Bernie Sanders then there would be a story here, because Sanders is a legitimate candidate. Andrew Yang was never a legitimate candidate which is why the media mostly ignored him. If Yang continues to work in the public sphere and continues to grow his base, he could make himself into an actual contender and thus earn more media spotlight. But this idea that he deserves some of the spotlight is ridiculous.

  • MSBNC is ridiculous (Score:4, Informative)

    by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @02:50PM (#59724812)
    In the past week, Christ Matthews expressed concern about mass executions being staged in Central Park, with himself among the victims, if Sanders won. Then, Chuck Todd called Sanders supports brownshirts, as in the Nazi paramilitary group. James Carville thinks the party will be a cult if Bernie wins and goes on a tirade against him daily. You know, the supporters of the Jewish guy who had a bunch of relatives killed in the Holocaust. He's too popular to ignore entirely like Yang I guess.
    Slightly funnier is when Matthews ran a clip of Carville trashing Sanders chance of winning, asked a Sanders staffer what he thought of it, and clearly against expectations, the staffer described how Carville said the exact same thing about Obama and worked on a winning campaign for someone who supported M4A when Carville said no candidate could win with that. Matthews just said "Well you did your research." and stammered off.

  • Wow (Score:2)

    by Holi ( 250190 )
    Unknown politician gets minimal media coverage because no one knows about him so he has a minimal following. Sounds like normal fucking behavior to me.

  • And this is unusual? (Score:3)

    by Targon ( 17348 ) on Thursday February 13, 2020 @03:18PM (#59724918)

    The media is STILL ignoring Bernie Sanders as much as it can, and downplays it when he does well. Bernie brings in 7000 people to an event in New Hampshire, and not a single mention, but if Biden gets 100 people in a room there would be coverage. What happened to Yang is more about there not being a big enough level of support, and until there is at least a 25% in a given state or in polls, the media will generally ignore anyone that is relatively new or unknown.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • The DNC and the media have massively rigged the primary in favor of candidates they like and against candidates they don't. Tulsi has been repeatedly excluded from debates while candidates with lower polling and fewer donors have been allowed in. Meanwhile Mayo Pete has gotten such a push that a disphit mayor with 8,000 career votes to his name "won" Iowa. You can't even when the DNC has tossed the donor requirement out the window so Bloomberg can debate, after paying the organization over a million dollars

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