Finally, it's curious that Sanders's criticism has launched such a furious pushback, including accusations of "attacks [on] the free press" and comparisons to Trump, when, for the past three years, prominent Democrats and liberals have relentlessly attacked the media for their coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign, including
Clinton herself. In some cases, those who lobbed the most vicious criticisms of the press are now solemnly mourning what Sanders said.
Take Neera Tanden for instance, who did just that on Meet the Press (a program, incidentally, whose host once wondered out loud whether a US journalist
should be prosecuted for publishing government secrets). You can find
example after
exampleof Tanden
criticizing reporters and the
media for their reporting on Clinton's email server scandal, and for having the temerity to report on the
newsworthy contents of her campaign's hacked emails.
Tanden
has said that "every reporter who gleefully trafficked in stolen emails via WikiLeaks abetted a crime" and
that "all those who printed WikiLeaks emails helped a foreign adversary." Nothing Sanders said remotely comes close to the extreme, nearly intimidating nature of these statements from one of the country's most influential Democrats, who herself has a
habit of censoring the supposedly independent reporters whose outlet her think tank owns, and who
once suggestedthat the Clinton campaign use "brown and women pundits" to "shame the Timesand others" into more positive coverage.
