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Will Trump's Return Coincide With the Death of Progressive Media?
We all must support (and share with our friends) those outlets where we find useful news and information. If we fail to do so, America’s media landscape may soon mirror those of the autocratic nations the incoming president so admires.
Nov 24, 2024
Have you heard that Comcast is planning to sell MSNBC? Is Rupert Murdoch planning to buy it? Will America’s media landscape soon resemble those of Hungary and Russia?
Without the rightwing media juggernaut, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president next year and wouldn’t have won in 2016. That said, the progressive media landscape looks like it might be about to get a whole lot worse.
Comcast, which owns NBC and its subsidiaries CNBC and MSNBC (among other media outlets) announced this week that they’ll be spinning off MSNBC (among others) next year.
And the consequences are already showing up. It was reported this week that Rachel Maddow just took a substantial annual pay-cut because of the uncertain future of the network.
In part, this probably reflects a belt-tightening at Comcast, but is also an indication of how legacy media — which now includes cable properties — are taking a hit from newer digital media, from social media to podcasts to web-based networks and programs.
The principal analyst and VP of content for the market research company eMarketer, Paul Verna, told the AP that:
“The writing is on the wall that the cable TV business is a dwindling business,” and, the AP noted, is “predicting future consolidation of the networks or acquisitions through private equity.”
Private equity (like Bain Capital) and large media operation acquisitions have a long history of gutting media properties to increase their profitability; often this includes what a study by Stanford University researchers described as a trend to “substitute coverage of local politics for coverage of national politics, and use more conservative framing.”
Air America radio (for which I wrote the original business plan and which carried my program) was on the air in virtually every major market in the United States, having leased over 50 major, high-powered radio stations from Clear Channel.
My program regularly beat Rush Limbaugh in the ratings: When I was invited to the Obama White House following that election, one person associated with the campaign noted to me privately that they believed Air America had played a meaningful role in Obama’s 2008 election.
That same year, Mitt Romney’s private equity company, Bain Capital, acquired Clear Channel and, in 2009, began reclaiming their stations, replacing Air America content with mostly sports. By coincidence, around that same time it appears Romney decided he’d run against Obama in the next election.
As Air America lost station after station, its ability to earn revenue through selling advertising collapsed. By 2010, the entire network was bankrupt just in time for Romney to run for president.
Will the same thing happen to MSNBC? Stay tuned.
Similarly, Republicans in Congress are salivating over Elon Musk’s rhetorical war with NPR after the network stopped using Xitter when Musk labeled the news network as “state-affiliated” media.
As the headline on Fox Business notes:
“Elon Musk renews calls to defund NPR after clip of CEO resurfaces on X: 'Your tax dollars' are paying for this.’”
Musk, of course, will be in charge of identifying those parts of government or institutions funded by government which can be cut to help pay for Trump’s planned $4 trillion in tax cuts for billionaires.
While it won’t fit her proposed new role as UN Ambassador, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a top member of Republican House leadership, was unambiguous, posting to Xitter: “I will DEFUND NPR.”
This is nothing new: Republicans in the House voted this past July to remove all federal funding for NPR by 2026; Musk and Ramaswamy, working hand-in-glove with Marjorie Taylor Greene (who was just made chairperson of the new subcommittee charged with implementing their recommendations) could probably speed up that timeline.
While NPR goes to great lengths to avoid political bias in their news (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting even hired last month, “in response to right-wing criticism,” multiple editors specifically to spot and stamp out any progressive perspectives that may creep into their reporting), if they were crippled, it’s safe to assume the roughly 1,500 rightwing hate radio stations in the country stand more than ready and willing to pick up their radio audience.
Rightwing billionaires brought us Fox “News,” Sinclair, two other web- and cable-based rightwing TV channels, nationwide networks of hate radio (now also in Spanish), tens of millions of dollars in subsidies to rightwing podcast hosts, and the destruction of about half the nation’s local newspapers.
Not to mention an entire network of billionaire-funded hard-right phony “pink slime” newspapers that pop up around the country every election year.
There’s no equivalent politically-tilted media systems on the left; Democratic-leaning billionaires have stayed out of the media space ever since Romney’s company took down Air America.
The closest TV and radio counterparts we have are Free Speech TV (available on the web, Dish, Sling, Roku, AppleTV, and DirecTV) and the Progress Channel on SiriusXM (my daily program is carried on both).
In the print media space, Substack is growing (although they also carry hard-right content) and provides a solid community of progressive publications (like HartmannReport.com), but that’s a drop in a much larger ocean; even The Washington Post and The New York Times don’t come close to the strength of editorial bias found in the Murdoch family’s The New York Post or The Wall Street Journal.
Publications like The New Republic, Mother Jones, The Nation, and The Guardian provide solid progressive content, but all have funding bases that are trivial compared to conservative publications supported by rightwing billionaire networks. Ditto for websites like Raw Story, Common Dreams, Alternet, LA Progressive, Democratic Underground, and Daily Kos.
As my old friend and the former CEO/founder of Air America, Jon Sinton, noted on his excellent “reluctant” Substack newsletter:
“The left-wing silo is barren. A couple of old line newspapers and magazines. MSNBC and a handful of smallish digital platforms and shows. Pod Save America stands nearly alone as a left-leaning podcast with a large audience.
“By contrast, the right-wing silo is vast and deep. It houses YouTubians, TikTokkers, broadcasters on Fox, Newsmax, Sinclair TV stations, and talk radio stations; posters on social media; and narrowcasters on myriad podcasts.”
All, I would add, heavily supported by rightwing billionaires. As Politico reported in 2014, the Heritage Foundation used to give $1 million a year to Sean Hannity and $2 million a year to Rush Limbaugh alone.
A close acquaintance who was, for years, a mid-level rightwing talk show host told me how a dozen or more times a year he’d give a speech at a random high school and would receive a check for $20,000-$30,000 by a rightwing foundation as a “speaking fee” each time. It was their way of supporting conservative talk radio.
Again, there is literally nothing like that on the left. Not even close.
I’ve repeatedly called for progressive billionaires to jump into the media space, and perhaps the Musk/Trump assaults that are coming will provoke some to act. It may be wishful thinking, but if it does happen it can’t come too soon.
In the meantime, we all must support (and share with our friends) those outlets where we find useful news and information; if we fail to, America’s media landscape may soon mirror Hungary’s and Russia’s with every station and publication praising Dear Leader 24/7/365.
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Study Exposes Double Standard for CNN and MSNBC Coverage of Gaza v. Ukraine
U.S. media, analysts said, "should elevate its coverage of the suffering in Gaza to be comparable to that of Ukraine, with the same urgent and moralizing tone."
Oct 15, 2024
As the death toll from the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip continued to climb on Monday, The Nationpublished a study revealing the "glaring double standard" for American corporate media coverage of that war and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The analysis was conducted by Adam Johnson, who co-hosts the podcast Citations Needed and writes media criticism at The Column, and Othman Ali, a researcher and data analyst with an advanced degree from the University of Oxford.
The pair—who released their full dataset on GitHub—focused on the first 100 days of each conflict. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and Israel launched its war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
Since the Russian invasion, media critics have highlighted "the racist and dehumanizing double standards of war reporting." Over the past year, such criticism has mounted, with arguments that Western media are "enabling" genocide in Gaza.
In March, protesters frustrated with the U.S. "newspaper of record" even gathered in Manhattan and chanted, "New York Times you can't hide, we charge you with genocide." Watchdogs like Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting and Media Matters for America have published various critiques, with the latter often focusing on right-wing sources.
"CNN and MSNBC's pointed lack of sympathy with Palestinians is also important to examine because the media's consistent dehumanization and erasure of their suffering has helped 12 months of a killing campaign."
Johnson and Ali focused on commentary, editorial priorities, and reporting by CNN and MSNBC, explaining that "the third major cable network, Fox News, was not included in our analysis because the focus of our study is in the formation of liberal and Democratic Party-aligned support for Israel's war on Gaza."
They found that on the two networks, Palestinians in Gaza received "far less sympathetic and humanizing coverage than either Israelis during the same period or Ukrainians during the first 100 days after Russia's invasion."
"The point of this analysis is not that U.S. media should reduce its coverage of the tragedies in Ukraine to achieve parity with Gaza, but that it should elevate its coverage of the suffering in Gaza to be comparable to that of Ukraine, with the same urgent and moralizing tone," the pair stressed.
"CNN and MSNBC's pointed lack of sympathy with Palestinians is also important to examine because the media's consistent dehumanization and erasure of their suffering has helped 12 months of a killing campaign, backed by unending American military and political support, that is unprecedented in the 21st century," they added.
Johnson and Ali highlighted four key findings:
- Sympathetic victims like journalists, refugees, and children are mentioned more in Ukraine than in Gaza, despite a significantly wider gap in casualties and human suffering;
- On CNN and MSNBC, emotive words such as "brutal," "massacre," "slaughter," "barbaric," and "savage" were overwhelmingly used to describe the killing of Israelis and Ukrainians, and almost never used to describe the killing of Palestinians;
- CNN and MSNBC covered the impact of Russia's invasion on civilians twice as often as they did the impact of Israel's bombing and siege of Gaza on civilians, despite the latter having a death toll five times that of the former; and
- On CNN and MSNBC, the words "war crime" or "genocide" were mentioned over 17 times more in the context of Ukraine than they were in the context of Gaza.
They found that for each child death in Ukraine during the first 100 days, there was the equivalent of 16.1 mentions on air, while kids in Gaza received the equivalent of 0.36 mentions. For journalist deaths, it was 24 versus 2.5. The study also shows that the networks "covered Ukrainian civilian suffering almost twice as often as they covered that in Gaza," despite the latter having a death toll that was 500% greater.
In just the first 30 days of the Russian invasion, cable news anchors, guests, and reporters used emotive terms for Russians killing Ukrainians 661 times. In the first month of Israel's assault on Gaza, they used such language to describe the killing of Israelis 1,053 times and Palestinians 43 times. Additionally, people appearing on-air for both networks described Ukrainians as being subjected to genocide or war crimes 1,790 times compared to just 104 times for Palestinian victims.
"One common rejoinder to this double standard is that Israel doesn't intentionally kill civilians, whereas Hamas and Russia do," Johnson and Ali pointed out. "But this assertion is based entirely on unsubstantiated conventional wisdom and is belied by scores of data points."
In a note attached to the article, the researchers detailed that the United Nations "estimated that around 4,000 civilians had been killed 100 days into the Ukraine war. The broadly accepted death toll in Gaza for the first 100 days is over 24,000, but this is a figure that doesn't distinguish between civilians and noncivilians. So, in the interest of being conservative, we are using the civilian death toll of 20,000—though this number, as several researchers have explained, is almost certainly a massive undercount because it only includes confirmed deaths, not those unidentified, under rubble, or dying from secondary causes such as preventable illness, starvation, etc."
More than 1,100 people were killed in Hamas' attack on Israel last October, and militants took over 240 others hostages. Some captives have been released, some have been killed—including by the
Israeli assault—and some are still believed to be alive.
As of Tuesday, Gaza officials put the confirmed death toll for Palestinians in the Hamas-governed enclave at 42,344, with another 99,013 wounded. In recent days, Israel has bombed a hospital complex and refugee camps. The vast majority of the strip's 2.3 million residents have been displaced, often several times over the past year.
The U.S. government has long supplied Israel with weapons and diplomatic backing and has ramped up such support since last October, despite global criticism. Multiple news outlets revealed Tuesday that in a Sunday letter, the Biden administration finally threatened to cut off U.S. arms unless Israel takes certain action to improve the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
In response to the letter, Johnson
said on social media: "1) Israel can keep bombing all it wants 2) Criteria for 'improve' is vague and like 'invasion of Rafah' they'll just post facto change the definition."
"BUT what's noteworthy is the tacit admission the U.S. can condition military aid," Johnson added, "something I was told was pointless five [minutes] ago."
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Sanders to Headline 'Progressive Central 2024' on Sidelines of Democratic Convention
The two-day event in Chicago ahead of the DNC, said one organizer, "will highlight a very practical, realistic agenda that promotes a program that directly addresses the most pressing concerns of average American households."
Aug 10, 2024
Organizers behind the "Progressive Central 2024" event scheduled to take place just ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this month announced Friday that Sen. Bernie Sanders will be the keynote speaker alongside a roster of lawmakers and movement leaders determined to keep the left's working-class agenda moving forward ahead of November's election—and beyond.
Nearby in downtown Chicago and just before the DNC kicks off, the two-day sideline event is being orchestrated by Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), The Nation magazine, The Arab American Institute, and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
Alan Minsky, executive director of PDA, explained to Common Dreams that it's being "organized around a simple concept: what if the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was putting on a national convention—like the DNC or RNC. What programs and ideas would be foregrounded?"
"We all know very well that not only political offices are at stake this November, but also the very future of American democratic life." —Harvey J. Kaye
The answer to that question, he said, will be "nothing like the mass media's familiar mischaracterization of progressives as a group of outliers, (angrily) voicing a litany of complaints" toward those with more power.
"Rather, very much in contrast," said Minsky, the event—which will take place August 18 and 19 at the Chicago Teachers Union building—"will highlight a very practical, realistic agenda that promotes a program that directly addresses the most pressing concerns of average American households—and is very in line with the wishes and aspirations of a majority of the American voting public."
In addition to Sanders, prominent members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus will attend, including CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal and Reps. Ro Khanna, Jamie Raskin, Barbara Lee, Raul Grijalva, Maxwell Frost, Danny Davis, Jonathan Jackson, and Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia.
According to organizers, other scheduled speakers include former Ohio State Senator and activist Nina Turner; The Nation's longtime political correspondent John Nichols and the magazine's president Bhaskar Sunkara; Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison; NOW president Christian Nunes; attorney and Free Speech For People founder John Bonifaz; University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor of history Harvey J. Kaye; and many others.
"The event will bring together a diverse group of voices in favor of sharing our respective progressive hopes and aspirations," Kaye told Common Dreams on Friday.
Kaye, who earlier this week published an essay and comic strip at Common Dreams with cartoonist Matt "The Letterhack" Strackbein on the need for a New Economic Bill of Rights for the 21st Century, said his hope is that attendees can galvanize around a shared vision and set of organizing principles for the future.
"We all know very well that not only political offices are at stake this November, but also the very future of American democratic life," said Kaye. "And if all goes well, we will develop a more strongly shared understanding of what needs truly doing."
"No more neoliberalism," he said, referring to the toxic strain of economic thinking that has infected both the Democratic and Republican parties for far too long and suggesting that the days of privatization, austerity for public programs, and hostility toward universal public goods must come to an end. "As FDR said: to win, the Democratic Party must be the party of 'militant liberalism' that is, social democracy."
While Sanders remains an independent lawmaker representing Vermont in the U.S. Senate, he caucuses with the Democrats and has been one of the Biden administration's key supporters on a number of issues. Sanders stood by Biden's 2024 campaign even as it struggled and even as Sanders repeatedly pressured the Democratic president to change course when on his support for Israel's relentless assault on Gaza.
"My hope is that the progressives leave more emboldened and with more knowledge than when they arrived." —Nina Turner
In public appearances in recent weeks and months, including since embracing the emergence of the Harris-Walz ticket since Biden stepped aside last month, Sanders has made it known that his prescription for beating Trump and the Republican in November is by galvanizing working class voters.
"Good policy for working-class voters is also good politics," Sanders said earlier this week in response to findings of a survey, he commissioned that broad support for progressive policies by swing state voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
"It should come as no surprise that expanding Social Security, raising the minimum wage, and capping rent increases are very popular," he said Monday. "The political class would do well to listen to the clear directive of American voters, and deliver. The simple fact is: Whether you're running for the White House or a city council seat, if you stand with working people, they will stand with you."
Nina Turner, a longtime Sanders ally, told Common Dreams that she looks forward to being at the Chicago event to remind progressives just ahead of the DNC "that the policies that we are pushing are not only popular among most Americans—no matter how they identify politically—but that we on the right side of history."
"I am excited by PDA's vision to create a space for progressive to gather, talk to one another, and be lifted up, because that is important," Turner explained by phone. "It's very easy to get wary in the type of work that progressives are doing in terms of standing up for what is just and for what is right. Ultimately, the goal of the progressive agenda is to create a human rights economy—an economy that sees and cares for every individual in society."
Turner, who remains a member of the Democratic National Committee and will be attending convention, said progressives are right to stand against the neoliberalism that has dominated the Democratic Party for too long and the neo-fascism represented by Donald Trump and his Republican Party. "They are out of touch," she said. "They are the extremists. We have to remember that and we have to start saying that in our rhetoric every single day."
Marking the start of the contemporary progressive era as one that emerged out of Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, Turner—who served as national co-chair of his 2020 run—acknowledged that the movement is still maturing, and needs to mature, as it moves forward.
"We have to have an inside game and an outside game," she said. "We have to make demands and we have to have consequences for our demands not being made. We have to play chess and not checkers."
It has "been hard at times to keep our movement together," Turner said, "we have to recognize we are absolutely stronger together. There's a saying, 'If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.' So we have to be reminded of that collective agenda that we can call get behind and push for that agenda."
Turner said progressives, whether they consider themselves part of the Democratic Party apparatus or not, have to—in the words of activist and rapper Michael "Killer Mike" Render—"plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize" if they want to have a chance of gaining ground.
"My hope is that the progressives leave more emboldened and with more knowledge than when they arrived," said Turner. "We must constantly remind ourselves that justice is not a destination, but a journey that every generation must take as they pass the baton to the next and the next and the next."
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