Bernie Sanders joined Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and in a long interview touched on a very sore subject for most lefties. The right wing in this country funds and supports outlets like Fox News and the Breitbarts of the internet and Sen. Sanders believes we should fight fire with fire.
He also believes that the corporate media should start covering real policy issues and forgo the pageantry of political campaigns - the he said/she said type of controversies.
Full transcript via MSNBC
MADDOW: What's the solution to corporate media?
SANDERS: Uh, I think we have got to, uh, think about ways that the Democratic Party, for a start, starts funding the equivalent of Fox television.
Number two, uh, I think that pressure has got to be put on media to say that you know what, maybe as a nation, the American people are entitled to hear real discussions on real issues. You tell me, you're in the media, what percentage of the media discussions in this campaign is about process?
Who's going to win in West Virginia?
How many delegates does Hillary Clinton have?
What dumb thing did Donald Trump say yesterday?
Rather than why are we the only country in the industrialized world not to guarantee health care to all people?
How much discussion have you heard on TV about the fact that the top 1/10 of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent?
That's the kind of discussion we need and the American people need to be engaged in that. So we have got to demand of corporate media, and that's going to be hard, because this is against their own best interests.
NBC is owned by who?
Uh...
MADDOW: Comcast, our overlords.
SANDERS: All right. Comcast is not one of the most popular corporations in America, right?
MADDOW: Hmmm.
SANDERS: All right. Etc. Etc.
And I think the American people are going to have to say to NBC and ABC and CBS and CNN, you know what, forget the political gossip. Politics is not a soap opera. Talk about the real damn issues facing this country.
I was in McDowell County, Virginia, West Virginia, yesterday. People's life -- male life expectancy there is 18 years less than it is in Fairfax, Virginia. Eighteen years. People's male life expectancy is the equivalent of Guatemala.
Do you think this should be happening in America?
I don't think so. But we don't discuss those issues.
So I would hope that the corporate media understands they have a responsibility to our democracy, and without a serious discussion on serious issues, not looking at politics just as a horse race.
MADDOW: As -- as a candidate, you have raised those issues consistently...
SANDERS: Yes, I have.
MADDOW: -- over and over and over again.
SANDERS: Without much success, I must say.
MADDOW: Well, it's plenty of success. I mean you've raised a quarter of a billion dollars, right. You've -- you've driven the...
SANDERS: No, but I mean in terms of the corporate media, I have not...
MADDOW: Every time you get into the corporate media, the voice of (INAUDIBLE) that you (INAUDIBLE) say...
SANDERS: Well, I try to jump in.
