Amount of coverage, if not the most, that would be Bernie Sanders. A lot of commentary about the size of his crowd and his appeal. The coverage of mrs. Clinton has been pretty negative. A lot of that focused on her emails. I think the thing that really is remarkable to us as media analysts is how she has decided to run this campaign. Im not granting interviews and not do too much press, take a couple of local press questions, maybe. It is amazing to me that she can get away with that. I start to wonder if the press has any selfrespect. They didnt look like they had a lot of selfrespect when they were roped in on the street. She responds on twitter to whatever the debate is happening, whether it is in washington or outside of washington. She will come to twitter to respond that way. What do you make of candidates using that rather than using the mainstream immediate krmedia . That can be the most canned, consultantdriven material. It is not the same as the back and forth with the journalist. She is running a very canned campaign, exactly what she did in 2007, ran a canned campaign. They were doing more immediate kra back then than she is doing now. One of the things they did back then was abc had these 45minute town Hall Meetings with three of the democratic candidates. With obama, with john edwards, with Hillary Clinton, republicans never get that kind of air time. They are certainly not going to get it with 17 candidates. We are talking about media and politics with tim graham, who is the media analysis director for the Media Research center and also the executive director of news busters and coauthor with the Media Research centers president , brett bosul of the books collusion, how the media stole the 2012 election and how to prevent it from happening again in 2016. Ba barb, you are up first, a republican in pendleton, oregon. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have been watching cspan for years and years and years. I am one of the old ones. Im in my 70s. I am very strong and involved with politics all of my life. I was a john kennedy backer and also worked for bobby. I have clanged totally over, because im not interested in the media and politics being able to tell us what is politically correct. I am a trump. I am backing trump, because he is a leader. As far as the ten that are up there, you can pull part of your he can pull part of his cabinet from them. They have got some sharp ones up there. I am also a backer of cruz. I would love to see him as vicepresident. However, things have got to change. We do not get, other than cspan, we do not get anything that is open to people. Its basically whatever anybody thinks. We are not talking about whats really wrong in this country. This country is in a mess in all directions. We are going to have to get somebody in there and change it and turn it around. I think trump can. Tim graham . I think there is a lot of the appeal here in trump. This is where the media comes in. They see ross perot in 1992 and 96. The whole notion of running the government like a business. I think journalists when they look at this race sort of love the idea of trump. There is this idea of he can be either the guy that takes the republican nomination and sort of the bull in the china shop or he becomes the thirdparty candidate like perreault and like in 92, elects a clinton. I think those two scenarios both delight the journalists in my opinion. What do you make of barbs sentiment . We have heard it from other callers, there is this antiestablishment, and included in the antiestablishment is this antiestablished against the established media . Sure. It is not just whats happening in congress or at the white house. There is this skepticism and cynicism towards the mainstream media. The immediate kmedia has a l. One of the reasons with he do what we do, television, starting with john kennedy, became a very powerful factor in who we decide to be president and who runs the government day to day. Now, were at a point where the media seem to want to say who the president should be but once they become president , the issues are too boring. I dont expect that there will be a lot of heavy new coverage this morning of the new epa regulations. This is not the kind of story they like to do now. They would rather have, what did trump say about megyn kellys time of the month . Great. Lets do 20 minutes for that. I think to some extent, it is insulting, really, to the voter. They think we get a lot of people in this audience that dont vote or vote rarely. Thats not really our concern. It is all about how many times can we get these people to watch the red lobster commercials. 24 Million People did tune in to that debate. What do you make of the interest there . Well, again, yes. Here is a figure who is sort of a to be lloyd figure who is kind of ace, what is he going to say next . You probably had a much higher democratic audience for this than you normally would for republican debate. They were looking to see what kind of train wreck is this going to be . Im surprised at how large it was. It was twice as large as i might have expected it to be. Well see if that continues. But this is one of the reasons why they are doing so much coverage of trump. They think he is good for their business and they think he is good for their agenda, i think. Thats one of the headlines that you can find on Media Research center website, mrc. Org. Tv campaign, 2016 news. An avalanche of trump coverage, not much for others. Frank is a democrat, inglewood, colorado. Hi, frank. Caller hi. I had a question. Trump is entirely a media creation. I was wondering whether you think that having someone like donald trump, someone who is otherwise a reality show presenter with a boatload of money running a viable president ial campaign, does that represent the end of our fair and true democracy and fair and true Media Coverage in america as we know it . I think it is kind of democracy as it operates now. I like the caller who is making the point that trump is somehow seen as the populous, not the lobbyist. I gave money to hillary so she would come to my wedding really does say to some extent what donors to candidates expect. Sometimes it is just a personal thing and not a policy thing. A lot of times it is a policy thing. Donald trump has the right to run for president. He has one of the things that every candidate wants. He has very high name i. D. He has been sort of that representative of the new York BusinessCommunity Since what, the 80s. He has been around a long time. You can see where the news media would find him an interesting candidate. It is funny in a way. I think journalists think he doesnt have any experience. He would probably need a lot of education as to how to be president. They are just enjoying the ride right now. I think they want to see where it goes. They expect he wouldnt even file his Campaign Finance disclosures. They are just kind of riding it while the campaign continues. Houston, texas, ricky, next, a republican. Caller how are you doing . Im just calling because i think it is really important that you look at the fact that the indicator of 24 million watching the debate tells me what ive been knowing for at least two decades now, and thats the problem with the treasonous media and their propaganda for democrat and liberal causes and progressive causes. I think we are starting to wake up to that fact. We are now rejecting anything that the media is doing just to show them that we are sincere about what we are going to look for in a candidate. Now, i dont think trump is it. However, i would say i would rather trump than any of the gop well wishers, such as jeb bush or the like. I think we have to stick together and recognize that unless we turn off the abc, cbs, nbc and cnn, and start really listening to what our hearts are saying, we will find this country is really going to go downward until we decide its time, weve had enough of what the treasonous media has done. Tim graham . Well, i wouldnt say treasonous, necessarily. I think that, again, the problem we have with our media today is, lets take a look at Something Like the national debt. This is not a story that they do. You could look at all the coverage for 2012 and look at the word deficit. You would have a hard time finding a place. Mitt romney was trying to find an issue. The news media werent interested in it. That was not an issue. They simply decided it was not an issue and was not going to be on the table. That is the sort of thing where you say, if the National Media would like to present itself as a referee of our politics, the referee is missing a lot of the time. The main focus is, who is up, who is winning, who is losing and who said what about who. The substance gets lost a lot. Trenton, missouri, robert, independent. Caller hello. Hi, robert. You are on the air. Question or comment. Caller well, it is about donald trump. When he was up there and they were questioning him and everything and he said he owned about, x number of businesses and he is hiring american citizens and they are paying taxes, why didnt they ask the rest of those representatives, how many businesses do you own . How many people are you hiring . No. They are doing nothing but sucking money out of the public. There is not a one of them worth voting for except trump, because he dont want their money. He dont need their money. He is running his own campaign and he dont like lob byists. He dont like special interests. He dont want none of their money. He dont want anything to do with them. Now, why in the world the american scitizens cant wake u and realize we need a man like that in there that knows business, knows who you to run a business, because america is a Great Big Business . Robert. We understand that. What do you make of how he is being covered by the television networks, by the print media . Caller well, ill tell you. They are all afraid of him, because all of them up there are in the pockets of lob byists, special interests and big business. Trump isnt. He owns his own businesses. He runs his own country, his own businesses. The rest of them, all they want is whatever money that the lob byists and special interests can put in their pocket. Got your point, robert. Tim graham. I find that completely mindboggling. I dont like the lob byists and i dont like the special interests. It doesnt make sense to me. There is another business person in the race, in Carly Fiorina, who was the ceo of hewlettpackard. You would have to think that perhaps next time when they do polling, she might end up in the first tier of the debate. I dont think that just because somebody has been a politician, that somehow disqualifies them from being president of the United States. Maybe i have been here in washington too long. That doesnt make any sense to me. There are a number of governors. Governors arent here in washington but they are running governments in the state. I dont think thats a disqualification in any way. What about the coverage of Carly Fiorina . Is she being propped up superficially or artificially . There havent been a lot of questions about her business operations. Again, generally, she does get asked about being fired. Thats usually the first thing that comes up. The amount of her coverage in the networks is very small. We are talking about these people are getting a minute. Jim webb got 19 seconds. When you get down there in the weeds, they are getting almost no coverage whatsoever. I think that this debate performance is one chance for her to get a little bit of air time. Is the coverage of Bernie Sanders matching the amount of people that are showing up for his events . 12,000 in seattle. I didnt see overnight what or how they covered sanders there. This, to me, presents the only chance where Bernie Sanders gets negative coverage. These black lives matters keep showing up and trying to ruin his events. This is one of the things about republicans that are amusing. Republican voters dont do that. They are man nerl and wellbehaved. They dont try to interrupt your campaign. What the news media wont do. We saw them not do this. They dont look at it and say, this could be trouble for the democrats if they cant even have events that dont turn into this sort of a frac cass. It reminds some of us older people in the 1972 convention. Not that i was very old. The mcgovern convention was a mess because they let people talk until you got nominated until 2 00 in the morning. Thats the messy way the democrats look sometimes. I this i that is a danger for that. Columbus, georgia, duncan, democrat. Good morning to you. Caller good morning, maam. Thank you for taking my call. My comments for the most part are about mr. Trumps hatred, comments and remarks about anyone who says anything negative about him. You know, its really sad. I was really saddened by the comments that he made in regards to miss kelly. As far as i was concerned, it was a fair course. He tends to say a lot of hatred and very ugly things about people. I imagine just because he can, because he is a rich man and all that stuff. Like a lot of others, it is no excuse for the things that he says. Im amazed by the people that according to the polls have fallin behind him. I understand politics a little bit. Im a 57yearold man. I follow it just a tad. Our politics has reached a new low with this gentleman here. It is beyond. He gets in these news conferences and what have you. The ones that i have watched, he is not saying anything, anything. Okay, tim graham. This is the funny part, though. Here we have trump. He is always over the sunday shows. Some of the other republican candidates got some air time on sunday to come on and talk. Where is mrs. Clinton . So every time i see donald trump take tough questions and that was a tough question. It was a personal question. I can understand as a candidate how that would be an upsetting question. The other candidates did get tough questions. Jeb bush got the iraq question. There were a lot of hardballs out there. The first thing i think of when i look at those is to say, where is Hillary Clinton getting tough questions like this . I think fox news would ask her the tough questions if they got a chance. She is so atrade of tfraid of t. She is not doing the people that really love her, like Andrea Mitchell on nbc, who would give her an adoring interview, she is not willing to do that. Thats the dominant question i would like to ask as a media critic. Why is mrs. Clinton allowed to do this, to not speak . That ought to be a question that a selfrespecting journalist would ask. And still get coverage. There are a lot of Unanswered Questions here that she could be asked on policy and her scandals. You have so many scandals with her. There are new ones, old ones, ones of medium age. We want to talk about women. There are lots of questions about clinton and women. There is a really hard question out there for democrats about planned parenthood right now that she is not having to answer. Well go to richard next in lake placid, florida, independent caller. Caller good morning. The problem i am hearing. I am so glad it is turning this way. E republicans and democrats cannot and will not people are starting to see the leeth. The republicans and the democrats cannot or will not fix problems like securing the border and creating jobs, balancing the budget. I dont know how long are we going to be fighting over there in the mideast and for what . Sending troops, men and women over there to die for what . Its very obvious that the Political Parties have become a cartel. The people what the people want, their job is to protect people, protect the country, create the best environment, create jobs. They cannot do that or will not do that. Trump, who has been a businessman, it doesnt seem like he is part of the political act. I think he can. A lot of people think he can. Thats why he is getting the support he is getting. More power to him. From what i hear, it looks like it is 9 or 101 for him who has been calling in this morning. I want to see trump go all the way. Get rid of these two Political Parties and create a party for the people, for the country and for the world. Weve been run by this ola garkky cartel for too long. All it does is create problems. Again, how does the news media cover a balanced budget . We already hit that one. How does the news media cover immigration . Remark edly slanted coverage of immigration. They dont really want to have a discussion about the negative impacts of immigration, whether it is illegal aliens, the burden on our health, education and information systems, whether we have issues where people are concerned about the culture and whether we can speak the english language. These are things they are not interested in. The conservative agenda on immigration. They are going to avoid all of those. They see those all at racists. What we have gotten in coverage of immigration, is very sympathetic profiles of illegal aliens. Thats generally where things start. Keyport, new jersey. Pat, you are on the air with tim graham and news busters and Research Center. Caller tim, i would like to know as someone who lives in a state with very little, if not no, influence on who is ever going to be the nominee for either party, why should i even care about these early debates . Why shouldnt i wait until the nominee is decided, because the media decides first major candidates after New Hampshire and iowa and then the nomination is all but wrapped up on super tu tuesday. The way the media covers this, why should i care . Again, they are the ones running the show at this particular point. The candidates have their own plans. It is true. The interesting thing about all of this is that you have 17 candidates and you ask yourself how many of them are still going to be on the ballot at the Iowa Caucuses . I am going to bet about 15. Somebody is going to run out of money and trip and fall. Then, 8 or 10 of them will drop off after like two votes. That is kind of a frustrating thing. The voters really dont get much of a right to decide. We dont have these long, drawnout primaries. Obviously, we did in 08 with obama and clinton. They understood obama is going to win anyway. Lets let mrs. Clinton win a few. They werent really concerned i