I’ve seen firsthand at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia the media’s reluctance to report the truth and bad habit of shepherding the news. I attended and participated in various DNC protest events, and later searched for coverage on these events. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly after closely watching this primary season, I found many instances of skewed media, nonexistent coverage, or inaccurate details. One can’t help but notice that the direction of the bias seems to be consistent with the direction of biases in the 2016 primary coverage.

Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves how media bias happens right under our nose, and how bias in trusted sources can control a large stake of political outcomes without reprimand or penalty. One of the most prominent examples of mainstream media’s attempt to portray “facts” through the eyes of their own agenda this year was the consistent inclusion of unpledged superdelegates in counts of total pledged delegates. For months I watched CNN present charts and other visuals that exaggerated Hillary Clinton’s delegate lead significantly. This heavily distorted lead included hundreds of extra delegates for Sec. Clinton, when in reality those delegates are allowed to change who they vote for weeks beyond the last state primaries.

These inflated numbers were reported to convince as many voters as possible who had not yet voted yet that Clinton’s nomination was inevitable, discouraging voters and most likely leading to smaller turnouts. Any reliable reporter or journalist knows the difference in these numbers, and would never misrepresent the progression of the primaries in such a biased way. In fact, the Democratic National Committee had even asked both the mainstream media and Hillary Clinton to stop reporting superdelegates in their delegate counts (1). But neither the media nor Clinton stopped abusing the incorrect inclusion of superdelegates.

Let us also not forget mainstream media’s “official” declaration of Hillary Clinton as the inevitable nominee for the Democratic party the night before California, the state with the most delegates and a potential to massively impact the primaries, even got a chance to vote. Five other states’ worth of voters with primaries on June 7 were also dissed by this deceitful announcement.

This claim was entirely false given the circumstances and primary rules but was nonetheless declared by AP and spread by multiple news outlets. Speculation is that this announcement was a desperate tactic to drastically decrease voter turnout in California the next day, where Bernie Sanders was giving Clinton a good scare in contemporary polls. By the way, Clinton didn’t officially get the nomination until two weeks ago at the convention, AP. Check your facts.

Mainstream media’s bias extended to the DNC, with a notable failure to give adequate attention to the protests, thus failing to represent to the public the fresh political revolution this primary season has spurred. Many media sources that have covered the protests to some degree have focused on the small percentage of negatives, including several arrests and a protester who caught on fire trying to stomp out a burning American flag. These negatively framed stories focusing on fanatics found in any cohort are easy to find; a good representation of the protest’s energy and goals, however, is not.

One good example of the media’s misrepresentation of facts refers to the Mississippi State Flag protest I detailed in my previous post. I found a vast discrepancy between the reported number of people occupying Broad Street and how many were actually in attendance. Multiple sources vastly underreport the number of people protesting in support of Black Lives Matter and removing the flag. Whereas the crowd grew from 20 to about 300, the media consensus states a minimalized crowd of 50 (2)(3)(4).

On Tuesday night I joined another march, and as the crowd bottlenecked through barriers and vehicles as we arrived at the gates surrounding the Wells Fargo Center, I bumped right into Jill Stein. Jill had a young woman on either side of her, all linked at the shoulders, to help her get through the crowd safely, but nothing more. Here was Jill Stein marching along in the crowd next to me.

Cheers rippled from the Stein epicenter as people started realizing who this woman was: Bernie Sanders’ supporters new general election favorite. We followed her around chanting and cheering in her favor, until we reached a fence corner where she could face the enthusiastic crowd and deliver some words. But Jill Stein did not have a stage, a microphone, or even a megaphone.

A megaphone eventually surfaced from the crowd and made its way to Jill. Standing only five rows back in a succession of about twenty, I struggled to even hear her voice let alone understand what she was saying. It wasn’t until a few minutes of her speaking into the roars of distant chants or sirens that a better megaphone surfaced and many more people could tune in to the Green Party’s presidential candidate.

Jill Stein is polling at a 2.8% national average for the general election currently, in a four way race: Stein vs. Johnson vs. Clinton vs. Trump. That may seem like a small number, but for a better perspective consider it in terms of volume of people. If all of the roughly averaged 130,000,000 ballots cast in the 2008 and 2012 presidential general elections vote again in the 2016 election, then Jill Stein would theoretically be earning more than 3.668 million votes if the election were to be held tomorrow (5). That seems like a large number of votes for someone you haven’t heard about on CNN or Fox News, doesn’t it?

Jill Stein certainly does not receive even close to 2.8% of the media coverage allotted for this primary and election season. When you Google Jill Stein, a much more poisonous image is painted of her via slander posts and poor reporting than will eagerly appear about Clinton or Trump. And I hope we can agree that that’s certainly not for a lack of scandalous headlines Clinton or Trump could generate.

Some excerpts from the first page of results when you Google “Jill Stein” include “Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s candidate for president, just wants someone to like her” (6), and one of my favorites,

“Stein provoked scientists Sunday by first deleting, then revising a tweet. Initially it said “There’s no evidence that autism is caused by vaccines,” but was changed to “I’m not aware of evidence linking autism with vaccines.” Scientists were quick to point out that neither of Stein’s tweets reflects the consensus that vaccines do not cause autism” In an article titled “Scientists obliterate Jill Stein’s anti-vaccine Stance” (7).

From what I can see, even if the evidence is just confined to this article, Jill Stein is not anti-vaccine. Both tweets mentioned in this article from the physician reflect that diplomatically. Here is an article that actually explains Jill’s position on the topic. But you need to dig a little deeper in your Googling to find this accurate portrayal of the candidate.

Based on my experience with Jill Stein, I should be so inclined to think that the woman I saw and marched with must be a different person entirely than the woman described in those devilish articles. Her views very snugly coincide with much of Bernie Sander’s platform, and she obviously has no problem being a part of active politics like the rest of the protesters sacrificing their week. She seemed like a sensible, assertive, open-minded, and intelligent woman. And she’s fighting a tough battle made more difficult by the media stonewall surrounding her.

I will take this opportunity to make a few points on what Jill Stein does actually assert in her platform, particularly in the environmental sense. One of Jill’s featured plans for the U.S. would be a Green New Deal, which would entail investing in 100% renewable and clean energy to be achieved by 2030, along with massive investments in public transportation, sustainable agriculture, and conservation efforts. This New Deal would replicate FDR’s in that millions of jobs would be created, economic growth would flourish, and threatening climatic effects on our economies and well-being would be averted.

Besides the heavy environmental and labor components of Dr. Stein’s platform, she focuses on many of Bernie Sanders’ major platform points including addressing college tuition and student debt, guaranteeing basic human rights like water, food, shelter, and affordable healthcare for all, breaking up big banks, a $15 minimum wage, reforming the incarceration system, and addressing systemic racism. I urge you to investigate Jill’s stances further at Jill2016.com, and to discuss her candidacy and platform with friends and family.

On Wednesday, several delegates crossed the street from the Wells Fargo Center to  FDR park to impart their experiences of the previous day’s walkout to the protesters. They knew that without them specifically making time in their day to address us personally, we would not hear accurate details of their part in the protests. The events and descriptions following are authentic accounts of the DNC walkout as told by several of the Bernie delegates involved.

The walkout had been planned before hand and was a silent protest. Some interested delegates were afraid of participating because of the political consequences associated with the defiant act. Delegates had to consider consequences including backlash from state parties or potential trouble for working with other parties in the future. When the party sees empty seats, one delegate told the crowd, they do not want to give money to those state parties to go door to door- [the delegates] are scared.

The DNC and police response to the walkout was intimidating, delegates recounted. Full tactical gear officers barricaded the point for re-entrance and snipers on the roof kept their weapons aimed at the delegates once outside the convention. One delegate said two of the state organizers involved with the walkout were forcefully detained by the Secret Service. At this point someone in the crowd replied something inaudible to most of us, to which the delegate shouted into the microphone with ferver: “They’re full of shit- do not believe the media.”

Several delegates spoke about the seat fillers the DNC used to occupy the abandoned seats of the Bernie delegates. These bodies were used to feign unity of the party for the American public watching the convention on television. Many delegates pointed out that this convention was really no more than a four day infomercial. “They own the cameras, so whatever we do, they can tell it how they want, or not at all,” one delegate warned.

Regarding the controversial reaction to the the DNC’s compromised platform incorporating more of Bernie’s ideas, one delegate told the crowd, “We can stay and get the compromised platform, or we can walkout- and we can do different things, that’s okay.” Another delegate later punctuated the DNC experience she shared with the crowd with, “This is for everyone to make their own decisions, I am not trying to tell you what to do.” That type of impartiality is what we need from the media. The delegates recognize that deficiency and are extending themselves to pseudo-media sources.
Another delegate added that, in reference to making a change or being recognized within the Democratic party, “As delegates, there is nothing we can do if we get inside that building [the convention]. The most effective thing we can do is go straight to the media tent… So we are here because we want to keep you guys fired up and motivated, because you guys are the best we have.”

Unbiased media and the general dispersion of information are the building blocks of a functional and fair society. Unfortunately, our system has many deficiencies exposed in this past year that must be addressed. Think critically when you are given information on a silver platter. Remember that someone may have something to gain by lying to you, and that they may be able to lie to millions without anyone noticing.

 

The delegates offered several sources for those in attendance to use to look further into this primary season and the blossoming political revolution. For more information, they referred us to this site about election fraud in 2016, and resources for someone to learn how to run your own campaign.

 

 

1  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/the-national-media-has-be_b_9364170.html

2 http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/dnc/20160725_ap_a14ad5bd02c54792b65a1bd000ee98aa.html

3   http://6abc.com/politics/after-protest-philadelphia-takes-down-mississippis-flag/1443225/

4   http://www.fox29.com/news/181284587-story

5   http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data

6   http://gizmodo.com/jill-stein-deletes-tweet-that-says-theres-no-evidence-1784624949

7   http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/01/scientists-obliterate-jill-steins-anti-vaccine-stance/