At townhalls in Iowa and NH ordinary citizens would ask questions like "What are your plans to help with student loan debt ?", "Healthcare costs are out of control - what are your plans to fix the system ?", "Will your Freedom Dividend cause inflation ?" etc.

On the other hand, MSNBC, ABC would ask questions like "Some people say you make fun of asian sterotypes, what do you have to say to that ? " or "Some white supremacists are coming out in support of your campaign - why do you think that is the case ?", "When you lose, are you going to support whoever is the democratic nominee?"

The media bias was frustrating to watch. The best sources for information in this cycle seem to be youtube podcasts like Joe Rogan or the Breakfast club.

> The best sources for information in this cycle seem to be youtube podcasts

I'd love to see long form become the dominant format in future cycles. It's so much better, allowing for nuance and depth. It's more real and human.

The format of TV interviews and debates are truly terrible. Largely devoid of substance, they reward/incentivize soundbites, shallow quips and drama. Yang wasn't playing that game and not well suited for it (perhaps part of why he was consistently given the least time), whereas he really shined in long form.

> The format of TV interviews and debates are truly terrible

I would love to see a debate that had no live audience, and took place around a table rather than a row of podiums.

I really liked Tulsi Gabbar at Joe Rogan, she had similar experiences and even Google blocking her advertisement account.

While this does kinda suck, note that Marianne Williamson is excluded from many (if not all) of these same examples, while having announced her candidacy well before (and even making it into the televised debates as well). Politics aside, my guess is this is more than anything else a symptom of not knowing what to do with candidates who don't already hold an elected position.

Marianne Williamson seems like a lovely person, but she's not even close to being a serious candidate. I can't blame people for not being interested in her campaign.

What criteria makes Andrew Yang a serious candidate compared to Marianne Williamson?

I’ve seen the two talk in long form on YouTube and Yang definitely had a more comprehensive platform and policies. What Marianne Williamson was onto was not trivial either, I think there is a lot of of truth to what she’s said about healthcare “sickcare”, Loss of meaning, and unity. But Yang had a lot of very well though out positions that never really came out in 30 second soundbites.

Usually I'd see his supporters point out polling averages and/or fundraising which seems reasonable. He'd often be omitted from groups that included people with much worse metrics on both.

I don't think mass media is justified to some degree basing their coverage off polling until the primaries start.

There's always a bunch of candidates who seem credible but can't get enough support, and others who do.

Compare Yang, Williamson, Klobuchar and Buttigieg and a bunch of other candidates. Buttigieg started polling well, which justified coverage. Klobuchar didn't get any coverage until her outstanding debate performance and then her polls picked up.

The others just never polled high enough for anyone to consider them credibly able to be nominated.

Buttigieg's positive coverage started when he was polling below 2% (even when he was polling below 1%). A lot of it had to do with having the right establishment connections[1]. His success in the polls seems to be the result of the media deciding to give him a lot of positive coverage, not vice versa. The same seems to be true of other candidates this cycle (like Klobuchar and Warren).

[1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/29/lis-smith...

> Klobuchar didn't get any coverage until her outstanding debate performance and then her polls picked up.

Klobuchar was getting lots of coverage, including major media endorsements (like the NY Times, which did a weird split endorsement of her and Warren), before the debate performance, and even after she's still barely registering in the polls nationally, polling at around 5% on average

I think after the primaries start performance in the primaries (especially unexpected performance) is a better indicator of expected media coverage.

PBS also seemed to like klobuchar long before anyone else knew the name.

I mean, these tweets are just nuts: https://theweek.com/articles/850004/marianne-williamsons-25-...

President Trump's been tweeting crazy conspiracy nut things for years, like having 'extremely credible sources' saying President Obama is from Africa. Clearly tweeting crazy things doesn't disqualify one from becoming President.

It does disqualify one from becoming a Democratic President, though.

But it should. Trump got through a filtering processes that should have prevented him from becoming president. This is not evidence that we should not filter crazy people out of the electoral process. If anything it’s evidence that the filter needs some work.

I think gender is the obvious difference.

Voter support, as measured by contributions and surveys.

And why do voters feel as they do? Because his weirdness is possibly the result of underlying genius, while for her weirdness it’s more likely to be mental illness.

Same was said for trump and yet he managed to cancel tpp, renegotiate NAFTA, and a new trade deal with Chinese. Three of Sanders's biggest talking points.

He also made enough political changes so that Sanders went from "open borders are a Koch brothers idea , bad for the nation", to "free healthcare for illegals"

Thanks for sharing this article. I had a gut feeling that Yang was blacked out pretty badly, but I wrote it off as just me being biased and upset that my first choice candidate isn't getting as much screen time as I would have liked. After seeing this article with all the clear-cut examples, I don't think that it was just me being biased anymore.

I didn't scroll all the way to the bottom, but I couldn't help but notice that all the examples given seem to be from MSNBC.

Please...

He got into the debates, which is far more than anyone without any party credentials could have had hoped for in previous primaries. The debates were already too large. Far too much money is spent on the primary. And whoever the nominee will be, they won’t have gotten much use out of this time of being one voice among too many.

So this primary is arguably not within the typical parameters of optimizing chances in the general. That’s because it’s basically mob rule, now: they are completely paranoid of a repeat of the collective pettiness of Bernie supporters, mistaking the slightest advantage HRC may have gotten out of 40 years of laughing at the unfunny jokes made by the Democratic mayor of East Westnowhere.

Yang had enough presence that he could have caught on. Buttigeg shows it’s possible for an unknown, Bernie has shown it’s possible for an outsider, and that guy from Texas has shown it’s possible for a weirdo. Also Trump.

It’s perfectly fine to afford the 5%-candidate less time than the 25%-candidates in a debate. And the print media would love to have a coming-from-behind story-arc. He just didn’t catch on.