On Thursday night, a man unfurled a Nazi flag at a Bernie Sanders rally in Phoenix, Arizona, and major news networks have so far failed to cover the incident despite a growing number of anti-Semitic attacks in the United States and abroad.
A Media Matters review of broadcast and cable news channels found that none mentioned the incident of a man unfurling a swastika flag in the crowd at the Sanders rally. The video of the incident was posted on Twitter shortly after it happened, and it has been viewed more than 1.2 million times.
Thursday’s incident occurred at a time when there’s a massive resurgence of white supremacist rhetoric and attacks in the United States, a lot of which target Jewish people and their houses of worship.
Media coverage about Sanders, whether it concentrates on his Jewish heritage or not, has far too often tended to be anti-Semitic. Outlets have chosen to run articles with accompanying photos that resemble anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews and have on several occasions chosen to use metaphors about Sanders sourced from the Old Testament. In August 2019, for example, a New York Times columnist described Sanders as “wild-eyed, scowling and angry as an Old Testament prophet on the downside of the prediction racket.” Many right-wing personalities have repeatedly likened Sanders to a Nazi as well, even though he lost family in the Holocaust.
According to a recent review:
Methodology
Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for the any of the terms “Bernie” or “Sanders” within close proximity of any of the terms “nazi,” “flag,” “slur,” “rally,” “Phoenix,” or any variation of “Jewish” for March 6, 2020, from 4 a.m. to 2 p.m EST.