Tired of Corporate Propaganda? Progressive Media Outlets Join Forces for Super Tuesday Coverage
Independent media outlets are partnering up to cover Super Tuesday Democratic primary results with a pair of live-streamed evening broadcasts that offer progressives an alternative to the U.S. corporate media that has been widely criticized for favoring centrist candidates and putting the interests of their advertisers over those of viewers and the common good.
"This race is not gonna just determine who takes on Donald Trump—it also has at its center the future of the Democratic Party and movements for justice."
—Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and The Intercept's Super Tuesday live special runs from 7:00pm to midnight Eastern Time (4:00pm to 9:00pm Pacific).
Watch it live (starts at 7:00pm ET):
Rising Up With Sonali's live program—a production of KPFK Pacifica Radio in collaboration with the nonprofit RootsAction Education Fund—runs from 10:00pm to 1:00am Eastern Time (7:00pm-10:00pm Pacific) and will be streamed at Truthdig.com, KPFK.org, FreeSpeech.org, TheRealNews.com, and RisingUpWithSonali.com.
Detailing its special coverage, Democracy Now! explained its chief anchors—Amy Goodman, Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh—would be joined by The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill to host "a rolling roundtable discussion with guests across the country, reporting real-time results and analysis as polls close in 14 states."
Registered Democrats turned out Tuesday in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia to cast votes for the party's primary candidates. Tuesday also featured American Samoa's caucuses and the first day for "Democrats living abroad" to vote.
In a clip that kicked off the Intercepted podcast's Tuesday episode, Goodman said that "the stakes in this Democratic primary are very high, and the corporate media's failing to bring people the crucial context necessary for voters to make informed decisions... This race is not gonna just determine who takes on Donald Trump—it also has at its center the future of the Democratic Party and movements for justice."
The Intercept's Aída Chávez, Lee Fang, Ryan Grim, Mehdi Hasan, Naomi Klein, Akela Lacy, and Robert Mackey are slated to participate in the program, according to promotional tweets by the outlet and journalists. Other guests will include Linda Sarsour, Masha Gessen, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Rashad Robinson, Briahna Joy Gray, Joe Salazar, and Raquel Willis.
On Tuesday morning, Intercepted published a special episode titled "Super Tuesday: Which Side Are You On?" The episode, hosted by Scahill, features Fang discussing the impact of dark money and super-delegates on the Democratic presidential primary as well as former Hillary Clinton adviser Peter Daou explaining why he is now supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2020 contest.
Sanders and four other candidates—former Vice President Joe Biden, billionaire businessman and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—still remain in what was once a crowded race. In the wake of South Carolina's primary last Saturday, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) both dropped out and endorsed Biden.
Biden's win in South Carolina followed weak performances in the first three contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, where Sanders collected the most pledged delegates and continued to build his "Not Me, Us." movement. Sanders' strong support in early states culminated in anchors and contributors at Comcast-owned MSNBC descending into what one observer called a "full-blown freakout" after the progressive senator's massive victory in Nevada last month.
"Democracy depends on a free and independent press that can hold power accountable, but sadly, the corporate media does not meet that standard," Sonali Kolhatkar of Rising Up With Sonali (RUWS) and Norman Solomon of RootsAction argued in an op-ed published last week.
Kolhatkar and Solomon made a broad case for the value of independent media:
Truly independent journalism relies on facts, just as corporate media often does, but frames issues with a clearly stated bias—a bias that lights a fire under the powerful and roots for the vulnerable, amplifies the voices of working people to topple power, and strengthen the powerless. The function of the press in a democracy is to pursue truth in the interest of progress, not in the interest of an unjust status quo. Seen through such a lens it isn't hard to judge whether the likes of The New York Times (or CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, etc.) truly meet the definition of independent journalism.
A crucial way to fight back is to drastically amp up support for independent progressive media. Information flow is key, whether in small communities or nationwide. That flow is essential to the health of the body politic, but blockage is routine from massive clots of concentrated wealth and corporate power. Media organizations that are fueled by people power instead of money power can disrupt the dominant media narratives—and replace them with authentic stories about people's lives and grassroots efforts to create a more humane society.
The op-ed also highlighted the RUWS Super Tuesday program featuring Solomon and other guest commentators and reporters, including Jane McAlevey, Zahra Billoo, John Nichols, Kshama Sawant, Arun Guta, Mitch Jeserich, and Julio Ricard Varela.
"This year is the first time that California—the nation's most populous and most racially diverse state—will participate in primary elections so early in the season," RUWS noted ahead of Tuesday's broadcast. "Based in the Los Angeles area, Rising Up With Sonali is poised to offer a unique perspective on the race for presidential nominations."