Last Dem debate brings on Big Media mea culpas about the 'Bernie Blackout'

CNN is finally recognizing how much it and the rest of the corporate media have fallen down on the job covering the actual race that's been going on between the main Democratic presidential candidates:

Since launching his campaign last May, Sanders has received vastly less media attention than his chief Democratic opponent, while his chances of becoming the party's nominee were largely dismissed by pundits and commentators — despite the fact that, like a certain senator before him, he draws far larger crowds, boasts a remarkably enthusiastic volunteer base, and, though he doesn't have as much money as Clinton, set an all-time record with more than 2.3 million campaign contributions last year...

"Clearly, we were not getting coverage that was commensurate with our support among the electorate," Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, said during an interview...

"Pundits and the press have been wrong about just about everything this cycle...," Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama who now serves as a CNN contributor, said of Sanders' rise...

When Sanders announced his bid, a Washington Post profile described the "unlikely presidential candidate" as "an ex-hippie, septuagenarian socialist from the liberal reaches of Vermont who rails, in his thick Brooklyn accent, rumpled suit and frizzy pile of white hair, against the 'billionaire class' taking over the country." The New York Times — which had afforded its front page to similar candidacy announcements from Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and others — buried the Sanders story on page 21.

Sanders, however, immediately began drawing thousands of supporters, and then tens of thousands, to his rallies. The media acknowledged the large crowds, but the Sanders campaign felt that pundits came up with endless ways to dismiss their importance.

And even when there was coverage, it was calculated to dismiss everything that the campaign was accomplishing:

"At every stop, the media had an explanation for why the crowds weren't significant," Weaver said. "5,000 people here? 'Oh, that's Bernie's home city.' New Hampshire, 'Oh, that's next door.' We went to Minneapolis and had 4,000 people -- 'Oh, well, that's the Frost Belt. Frost Belt people like him.' Then we went to Denver, and it was 'college liberals.'"

"Wherever we went, there was always an explanation about why what we were doing seemed to be significant, but really wasn't," Weaver said.

It wasn't that there weren't reporters or cameras at these events, Weaver explained. It was that, very often, none of the coverage showed up on the front page or on television. If you looked to the mainstream media, he said, you would have no idea that Sanders would one day be running even in Iowa or leading New Hampshire...

Part of it, according to one unnamed political journalist, was a result of being a member of what media critic and journalism prof Jay Rosen refers to as "the cult of the savvy":

"Among 'big-time' reporters, there's an almost pathological fear of looking unsophisticated," one veteran political reporter explained. "Journalists are supposed to look 'wised-up' and with it. I think this ingrained tendency often causes us to miss things that should be as plain as the noses on our faces — and that are apparent to 'civilians.'"

Now that Sanders is a real contender in some early states, he is forcing the media to recognize the vast liberal base that exists to the left of the Democratic establishment, much as the rise of the tea party forced the press to focus on the vast conservative base to the right of the Republican establishment.

The media has not always been receptive to this wing of the Democratic party, the veteran journalist explained. "The media has an instinctive bias against ultra-liberals. The real hard liberals are not taken seriously by our tribe," he said...

And then there's the Clinton factor that has played into the lack of reasonable coverage of Bernie Sanders' campaign and message:

Weaver also believes the media has an inevitable pro-Clinton bias because so many of the "Democratic consultants" who serve as pundits have relationships with the Clintons.

"Look at the political consultants on the air and Democratic pundits across the media. They're often Hillary Clinton supporters, right? Or former employees," he said. "That's not an indictment of anybody, but that makes them more open to a message that says, 'She's going to be successful. Bernie is not going to be successful.'"...

When asked to explain why the media had failed to anticipate Sanders' rise, one political editor at a Washington news outlet replied: "We knew Hillary was going to win, and we went chasing after Donald Trump."

That disparity has not been lost on Sanders. "A recent study showed on ABC evening news, Trump over a period of time got 81 minutes of time. Bernie Sanders got 20 seconds," Sanders said in an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo in December. "Now, you tell me why."

Does this mean that the Bernie Blackout is over and that he'll start getting fair coverage in proper proportion to his popularity?

I fear not.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you...