My fear is that Bernie Sanders is going to have a bad moment during the upcoming debate, and the media will seize on it to make him look unfit for the presidency.

I fear this because I’ve seen it happen before. Remember the 2004 Dean Scream?

CNN has the nerve to title its posting of this video “2004: The scream that doomed Howard Dean.” But ’twasn’t the scream that killed Howard Dean’s campaign. It was the news media running it over and over and over:

…the cable and broadcast news networks aired Dean’s Iowa exclamation 633 times and that doesn’t include local news or talk shows in the four days after it was made, according to the Hotline, a Washington-based newsletter. [source
]

I believe I heard at the time that CNN played it almost 200 times in that first weekend.

The pattern has become familiar: the media seize on something irrelevant, play it over and over, trying to fathom why the nation is so obsessed with it. This is “…the media’s equivalent of a bully’s “Why do you keep hitting yourself?” routine.”the media’s equivalent of a bully’s “Why do you keep hitting yourself?” routine. (Not to mention that the clip under-mic’ed the cheering of the crowd that Dean was yelling over. Here’s what it sounded like from the audience’s point of view.)

Bernie Sanders’s position in the Democratic Party is much like Howard Dean’s was. The Party doesn’t know what to make of him and his success. It worries that he can’t win. And, not insignificantly, both Bernie and Dean have greatly loosened the grip of the Party’s purse strings. That makes them “wildcards” and “uncontrollable.”

So, I am waiting in fear for the media to seize on something small or on nothing at all, and loop it under titles that tell us over and over that we think he’s unfit for office.

Why don’t we stop hitting ourselves? Why don’t we stop hitting ourselves? Why don’t we stop hitting ourselves?

So here’s a grim game: What will the title be under the moment the media manufacture to bring Bernie down?

• Is Bernie too erratic?

• Bernie Sanders’ temper tantrm

• Bernie’s fake laugh: too serious for public life?

• Does Bernie love Denmark more than America?

• Why can’t Bernie connect?

• Bernie’s Creepy Uncle moment

What do you think?

Categories: journalism, politics dw