CD (Portland) — Appearing on Face the Nation on CBS Sunday, US Senator Bernie Sanders discussed a number of issues he covers in his upcoming book, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, including his proposal to ensure that the news media acts in the interest of the general public and not wealthy corporations and powerful interest groups.

Host Margaret Brennan described his proposal as a “New Deal for Journalism.”

The Vermont independent senator, noting the growing crisis of “news deserts” in the United States, proposes that there should be “nonpartisan public funding of media” to ensure that local news outlets can stay afloat and keep communities informed about their city councils, their school boards, and other events of public significance.

Such a system would also prevent corporate news networks from relying on advertising dollars, which Medicare For All advocates have blamed for playing a role in the media’s hostility towards a nationalized healthcare system and other progressive proposals for the public good.

“What I say in the book is that, look, I’ve done a thousand interviews, like I’m doing with you right now,” Sanders told Brennan. “And nobody has ever come up to me, not one reporter—not you, not anybody else—and said, ‘Bernie, why are we spending twice as much on healthcare as any other country and yet we have 85 million uninsured or underinsured?’ How many programs at CBS, NBC, ABC had on why we have a dysfunctional healthcare system? Does that have anything to do with who owns the major networks? ‘Bernie, what are you going to do about income and wealth inequality?’ … ‘Why are billionaires paying an effective tax rate lower than working class people?’ No one asked me those questions.”

As Luke Savage reported at Jacobin following the 2020 presidential election, viewers of the Democratic Party primary debates weren’t informed by moderators that Medicare For All was supported by a majority of Americans, and advertisement breaks featured “health insurance and pharmaceutical companies seizing every opportunity to bombard viewers with misleading industry agitprop about the breathtaking wonders of profit-driven healthcare.” Savage added:

CNN’s Detroit debate is a case in point; the network was demanding at least US$300,000 from companies advertising, with a single thirty-second spot costing an estimated US$110,000—and groups like the so-called Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (in practice, a front for various corporate interests), filled out many of the slots. Regardless of how anchors or hosts think about an issue like healthcare, the networks’ basic model essentially precludes meaningful critique of the status quo by design. As long as it persists, don’t expect to see the public interest or popular opinion reflected anywhere on cable TV.

To counter such a dynamic, Sanders argues that publicly-funded media is “an idea that we should explore.”

Originally published at Common Dreams. Republished by cc by-sa 3.0. Edits for style and content.

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