At a time when the average student is graduating from a four-year college $27,000 in debt, when hundreds of thousands of capable young people no longer see college as an option because of high costs and when the U.S. is falling further and further behind our economic competitors in terms of the percentage of young people graduating from college, no agreement should be passed which, over a period of years, makes a bad situation worse and will make college even less affordable than it is today.
Even the alternative weekly newspapers, traditionally a bastion of progressive thought and analysis, have been bought by a monopoly franchise and made a predictable shift to the right in their coverage of local news.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights how even traditionally progressive media can be influenced by corporate ownership, leading to biased reporting.
In this quote, Bernie Sanders comments on the troubling trend where alternative weekly newspapers, historically known for their progressive viewpoints, have been acquired by corporate entities. This takeover has resulted in a shift towards more conservative reporting on local news, undermining the original intent of these publications to provide diverse and critical perspectives. It serves as a warning about the implications of media consolidation on public discourse and the variety of viewpoints presented to the public.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on media influence, this quote can be used to illustrate how corporate ownership impacts news coverage.
More from Bernie Sanders
All quotes →Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans - working families, children, the elderly, the poor - or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.
In any democratic, civilized - even non-democratic nations, if you are a nation, it means to say that in our case, if there's a hurricane in Louisiana, the people of Vermont are there for them. If there's a tornado in the Midwest, we are there for them. If there's flooding in the East Coast, the people in California are there for us.
Who do you think controls the Republican Party? Big money controls the Republican Party. This is where their campaign contributions come from.
The deficit crisis is real and must be addressed. But it cannot be solved on the backs of the weak and vulnerable.
Let us wage a moral and political war against war itself, so that we can cut military spending and use that money for human needs.
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The Republican nominee-to-be, of course, is also a young man. But his approach is as old as McKinley. His party is the party of the past. His speeches are generalities from Poor Richard's Almanac. Their platform, made up of left-over Democratic planks, has the courage of our old convictions. Their pledge is a pledge to the status quo-and today there can be no status quo.
Very big business is in bed with very big government in Washington, and has more to do with what the average person sees, hears and reads than most people know.
In 2008, I spoke out against calling the president a Muslim as if that was a curse. And then in 2012, once again, I was very disturbed about some of the intolerance I was seeing in the party, so I made a statement saying there's a level of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party. And there was, and I think there still is.
Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state.
The authority and influence of France on the world scene in the 21st century will not depend solely on its modernity and cohesion, nor even on the continuity and professionalism of its foreign policy. France will be heeded if it has a message to convey. Faced with the temptations of laissez-faire, France must stand out as the nation with the imagination and determination to pursue an ambition that combines cogency with generosity.
Once I should have been, if not satisfied, partially, at least, contented with suffrage for the intelligent and those who have been soldiers; now I am convinced that universal suffrage is demanded by sound policy and impartial justice.