 So I want to pick up on the conversation that we had last week on the show about the Bernie blackout because as you all know, networks like CNN and MSNBC, they are deliberately trying to ignore Bernie Sanders. Their goal is to erase him from the 2020 Democratic Party primary process. And it's problematic. It's actually going to hurt him in a real way because even if Fox News, for example, covers Bernie Sanders and 100% of the coverage of him is negative. Well, still, there was a report that shows Fox News viewers are more likely to vote for Bernie Sanders and support Bernie Sanders than MSNBC viewers because even if you're covering a candidate in a negative way, that still allows their message to penetrate, right? People get to hear what Bernie Sanders is about, even if they are criticizing him. But just simply ignoring him makes it seem as if he's not even a competitor. He's a non entity. So that can have a bigger impact. Now a new in these times report actually confirms what we already knew. MSNBC is in fact ignoring Bernie Sanders. Now a lot of us who are tuning into this show and watch independent media, you know, to us it doesn't matter because we don't get our news from cable networks. But for a lot of people left leaning voters who will participate in the Democratic Party primary, they actually do get their news from MSNBC. And as Bronco Marsetic reports, once known as the lone forthright voice of liberalism on cable news, MSNBC began alerts to the center in 2015 with its new chairman, Andrew Lack, going on a conservative pundit hiring spree and shedding the network's lean forward branding. 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 3 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 higher numbers in primary contests. So let's just stop right there and consider the implications of this. Like it or not, MSNBC is going to have a pretty significant influence on the 2020 Democratic Party primary. So the way that they cover candidates can literally make or break an election cycle. That's how much influence they have. So when we talk about them ignoring Bernie Sanders, when we talk about the Bernie Blackout, we're not just chicken little who likes to cry about the sky falling. This is actually something that matters because this can determine whether or not Bernie Sanders wins or loses. Now he may just be popular enough to where this isn't going to have as big of an impact as it did back in 2015 and 2016 when he had zero national name recognition. But still, this is incredibly important. Now, in the in these times report, what they looked at to determine that MSNBC was ignoring Bernie Sanders was the amount of times that they talked about the three front runners, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. And on top of that, looking at the content of these candidates, they determined how much of that was positive versus negative. So they did this by basing, you know, the report on six different MSNBC shows. Now what they first conclude is that MSNBC is in fact largely ignoring Bernie Sanders, quote, the coverage quickly revealed a pattern. Over the two months, these six programs focused on Biden, often to the exclusion of Warren and Sanders, Sanders received not only the least total coverage, less than one third of the Bidens, but the most negative. As to the substance, MSNBC is reporting revolved around poll results and so called electability. After the 2016 presidential election in which the press was criticized for disproportionately giving Donald Trump 2 billion of free media, MSNBC may be repeating history. So when you look at national polling from real clear politics averages, Joe Biden is in the lead nationally. Now, he lost that lead in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire. But for the most part, at this point, when he has had this many face plans, he shouldn't be in the lead. But because MSNBC talks about him so frequently, well, they managed to inadvertently prop him up as a serious contender when we all know that he would face plant in the event he were to go up against Donald Trump. So what we're seeing is the same thing happened in 2019. They're propping up a candidate who is failing. In spite of the failures of Joe Biden and the many failures, he still viewed as a legitimate candidate because MSNBC dedicates so much time to him. Now of the time dedicated to all of the candidates, well, it's very clear that they do have a favorite because Elizabeth Warren did get the most favorable coverage. Looking at her coverage from Rachel Maddow and the last word with Lawrence O'Donnell, well, it was entirely favorable. And the rest of it was fairly favorable as well, although the 11th hour with Brian Williams was the most critical of Elizabeth Warren. Now moving on to Joe Biden, he actually did receive quite a bit of negative coverage, but also remember that he received the most coverage. So even if he's getting fairly negative coverage in comparison with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, especially when you look at all in with Chris Hayes, just the mere fact that he's being covered this much, well, that doesn't really matter that the coverage in and of itself is negative. What matters is the repetition of coverage. Now going on to Bernie Sanders, Rachel Maddow's show is the only show that actually had positive coverage of Bernie Sanders, with how little they did in fact cover him. But the 11th hour with Brian Williams, I mean, this is mostly negative coverage of Bernie Sanders. Hardball with Chris Matthews, mostly negative coverage of Bernie Sanders. Now you have, you know, all in with Chris Hayes, the beat with Ari Milber, and the last word with Lawrence O'Donnell have mostly positive coverage. But keep in mind that that positive coverage doesn't necessarily matter so much if they rarely talk about Bernie Sanders. Now if they were covering Bernie Sanders more so than Joe Biden, then that positive coverage would matter. But I mean, if they largely ignore him, that in and of itself is the biggest problem. Now finally, one last thing that I want to look at with regard to this report and MSNBC's coverage of the 2020 Democratic Party Primary is this. Overall, MSNBC's primary coverage was devoid of policy discussion. Viewers were told often that Warren has a plan for everything, but not what those plans might contain. So predictably, they're fixated on the horse race. And Joe Biden is dominating their coverage. So I mean, we're seeing the same thing. And this matters. They're ignoring Bernie Sanders. And thankfully, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, they're giving him positive coverage. But that isn't necessarily the issue. The issue is that they're not talking about him enough. This is one of the front runners, right? So you would expect them to dedicate a pretty large amount of coverage to him, at least equal time with Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, but that's not what's happening. And on some of these shows with how little they cover him, they're covering him mostly in a negative light with the 11th hour show, for example. So this is the liberal network. When you tune into MSNBC, if you're just a casual observer of politics, you think I can trust them because I'm liberal and they're liberal and they just, you know, everything they say reflects my values. So I'm going to take them at their word. If they say Bernie Sanders is a bad candidate. And if they're not covering them, then maybe I shouldn't take him seriously as well. This is the impact that they're having on the primary. So imagine if Bernie Sanders got the coverage that Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg got, he would be absolutely unstoppable. But an ostensibly left-leaning network is ignoring Bernie Sanders and not really covering him very favorably. Well, we see that Bernie Sanders is being held back in large part due to the mainstream media. We talked about the surge of Bernie Sanders in the polls and how the media is ignoring that and focusing on Pete Buttigieg's surge. So I mean, this bias, it's problematic. What we really need to do is bring back the fairness doctrine and mandate equal coverage of candidates. But I mean, that's not going to happen anytime soon. And it's having an impact now. So the least that we can do really is educate people about MSNBC and how they are not fair to Bernie Sanders. They're not left-wing. They're center to center right. And I mean, we just have to turn people on to alternative sources of information, you know, um, indie media, not just a humanist report, but other indie media shows that talk about Bernie Sanders, who is the best candidate if you truly are on the left.