By Kaydee Donohoo
Staff Writer

You’ve probably seen a bombardment of Bernie Sander posts recently. The reason Bernie supporters can’t help but be loud online is that the media show a strong bias against this democratic socialist candidate.

Almost all major headlines painted Hillary as the winner in the October debate and the ones to follow. Bernie, however, was the most searched and most discussed candidate online immediately afterwards. Many focus groups believed Bernie to be the winner, as  did as several online polls.

Early on, Bernie’s campaign was almost completely ignored by major news outlets. The speculation of Joe Biden’s nonexistent campaign received more 2015 coverage than Sanders’ growing support.

Trump, who shows his experience as a reality TV star, had substantially more coverage in 2015 than all the democratic candidates had combined.

Currently Hillary is being painted as the inevitable democratic nominee, when it is much too early to call. Therefore Bernie supporters are posting why he has a large chance. Otherwise, those less active online may be dissuaded from voting.

The existence of bias did not happen by accident. The news needs to make money in order to stay in business. The surest way to bring in viewers to bring in profits, is to make the news entertaining. Voila, excessive Trump coverage.

The news is funded by corporations, and is one. Even if reporter and journalists themselves do not want to have this slant, it happens almost inevitably because of the people they work for.

Bernie Sanders lacks coverage because of his lack of super PACs—a powerful reason his supporters want him. No super PACs means no negative political ads that pay a lot of money to be seen on TV channels. His desire to end super PACs is a threat to their businesses in the future.

The fact that the news industry is afraid of Bernie is a great sign. He is a threat to the way biased news is currently running. Biased news is a threat to democracy. Sanders would be great for a democracy truly led by the people.

A potential result of all this is that people, especially who’ve done less avid research, who lean toward Hillary are voting for her, when they otherwise would favor Bernie. They may at least just sit back to passively see where this is going. They think Hillary will probably win. They think she could be the best chance at beating the Republican candidate.

If the media effectively dissuades voters, or falsely show Clinton as the only candidate to take on Trump, the winner of the democratic nomination is truly chosen as part of democracy. That’s not what America stands for.

Silence contributes to the media bias, but fortunately for Bernie’s supports, the more we resist being silenced, the louder we become.

The very fact that we’ve heard of Bernie Sanders means that the media blackout didn’t work. Tapping that post or retweet button is powerful. We are powerful. Our internet that brought Bernie to light can get him elected.

If you #feeltheBern, do not listen to the mainstream media telling you that it’s over. Your silence means consent and I know that being loud about Bernie means that he can win the nomination. Hillary supporters who think it’s in the bag are going to be getting lazy now, and we can work this to our favor.

It’s our chance to campaign, donate, and phone or face bank. Throw on a Bernie T-shirt, stick a button on your backpack, and post a dank meme on Facebook.

Even if we lose him as a candidate, we’ll be showing the country that we refuse to lose his ideals.