Bernie Sanders v. Hillary Clinton and the new media

Dear Friends,

Two articles showed up on my Facebook feed this morning.  The first was from U.S. Uncut (here) entitled, "How Tonight's Bernie Sanders Rally Compared to Hillary Clinton's (PHOTO).  The article used photos of Hillary Clinton's rally in New York City and Bernie Sanders' rally at Michigan State University to demonstrate the relative level of enthusiasm for the candidates.    This picture is from the Sanders rally at Michigan State University.

This picture is from the Clinton rally in New York City.

The article described the Clinton rally as follows:

For most of the attendees, being at the rally was mandatory, while some groups, such as the Carpenters Union, gave attendees “comp time” for the hours they were at the event. Even with such incentives, there were fewer than 1,000 people there.

The other article was from the local New York City affiliate of CBS (here) entitled "Thousands Rally For Hillary Clinton At Post-Super Tuesday Victory Event In New York".  The article quotes the Clinton campaign as saying that there were more than 5,000 people at the rally.  I am always suspect of campaign estimates of the number of people at an event.  A news organization should be able to make its own estimate.

I also search CBS to see what it had to say about Bernie Sanders' rally at Michigan State University.  Apparently CBS did not cover that event.

So how can I figure out what is really going on?  I am sure that the picture of the Clinton rally used in the U.S. Uncut article was designed to show as small a rally as possible.  But even if I believed the Clinton campaign that there were over 5,000 people at her rally, the Breslin Student Events Center at Michigan State University holds 15,000 people and appears to be full.  I have no doubt that the enthusiasm surrounding the Sanders campaign far exceeds the enthusiasm of the Clinton campaign.  I also have no doubt that the news media are for whatever reason downplaying the Sanders campaign and supporting the Clinton campaign.

Despite what most of the pundits are saying Bernie Sanders still has a viable path to the nomination unless the super delegates decide they know better than we the voters do.  The voting in the next two weeks will tell us a lot more about who the Democratic candidate will be.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal