Sanders Backers Stage Hollywood #OccupyCNN Protest of Unequal Coverage

April 4th, 2016 12:47 PM

A socialist brigade of Bernie Sanders supporters gathered at the CNN building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood on Sunday to protest the cable news channel’s alleged dearth of Bernie coverage. The radicals organized online under the hashtags #OccupyCNN and #BernieBlackout.

Blackout? CNN's Jake Tapper interviewed Sanders on Sunday on State of the Union. Sanders has appeared in multiple debates, town halls, and interviews on CNN...but certainly not as much as Donald Trump.

The socialist site Raw Story claimed it was a "massive" protest -- some claimed 2,000 protesters (NBC-LA), but most photos (including overhead shots) suggest "hundreds" would be generous....which doesn't count as "massive" in any way. Fox LA said "About 200."

CBSLA.com reported protesters voiced concerns that candidates are not getting equal time.

“Stop showing Trump so much,” said a man interviewed by Periscope user Sanders Fangirl. “Stick to the issues.”

“There should be fair and equal coverage for all presidential candidates,” said a man also interviewed by the Periscope user.

This is kind of funny coming from censorious Bernie backers who think the "climate deniers" and the "LGBT haters" should never be granted any air time. Sanders backers were citing a survey by Ryan Whitacker of DecisionData, who claimed in January that a comparison of Google searches and candidate mentions showed a shocking disparity:

Our analysis shows Bernie Sanders is being ignored by the mainstream media to a shocking degree. If covered at the average rate we’d have seen about 61,500 more stories including Sanders in the last 6 months: 91,094 mentions instead of 29,525.

Clinton receives a high amount of coverage, despite no dramatic changes in polls and lower search interest.

That was before any actual election returns. It's no secret that at first, the media treated Bernie like someone who was down 50 points in the early polls. The coverage wasn't negative, but it wasn't heavy.

Other Sanders fans have noted Hillary Clinton has received almost $200,000 in donations from employees of Time Warner, CNN’s parent company. In the land of "#OccupyCNN," that suggests a "conservative" bias, not a liberal one.