Bernie Sanders Had a Problem With MSNBC. Then Came Super Tuesday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/business/media/msnbc-bernie-sanders-media.html

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Two weeks ago, in the bowels of a Las Vegas casino, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont confronted the president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, with a stern demand: Be fair to me.

Mr. Sanders, fresh off his victory in the New Hampshire primary, was fed up with what he considered unfair treatment by the cable network that is required viewing for many Democratic voters. He chided Mr. Griffin before abruptly ending their discussion, according to two people briefed on the exchange.

What a difference a Super Tuesday makes.

By Wednesday night, hours after Mr. Sanders suffered a string of defeats to his chief rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., MSNBC viewers were greeted with the sight of Mr. Sanders sitting for a live interview with the network’s most influential host, Rachel Maddow, whose program the senator had avoided since July.

“Good to see you, Rachel,” Mr. Sanders said, grinning.

It was a striking turnaround by the senator, whose allies often hold up MSNBC as Exhibit A of the “corporate media” that Mr. Sanders likes to condemn. His campaign agreed to the Maddow interview after digesting Tuesday’s results, prompting the anchor to rush to Burlington, Vt., in time for the 9 p.m. broadcast.

Now Mr. Sanders’s campaign is in final discussions with MSNBC to appear on the network for a prime-time town hall before the next round of primary voters go to the polls on Tuesday, according to a person briefed on the discussions.

It would be Mr. Sanders’s first MSNBC town hall in nearly four years. The network had a longstanding invitation, but the senator — whose campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, once dismissed the network’s coverage as “terrible” — had declined the offer until now.

Mr. Sanders’s sudden embrace of MSNBC seemed to signal a newfound need to engage with a broader swath of a Democratic electorate that is rapidly coalescing around his opponent.

And it was an unlikely turn for the cable network just days after one of its longtime stars, the anchor Chris Matthews, was forced to resign.

Once a beloved safe space for Trump-weary Democrats seeking solace in the monologues of Ms. Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC has faced ire from the activist left throughout the 2020 campaign. These critics have faulted the network’s stars for advancing an “establishment” view, citing former Republicans like Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace, a former spokeswoman for George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.

MSNBC says the network covers the Democratic field fairly, not fawningly, and rejects any claims of anti-Sanders bias.

But Mr. Sanders’s supporters and other Democrats critical of the party’s moderate wing complain that MSNBC is out of step with the current state of Democratic politics. Some MSNBC anchors who have warned against socialist policies — Mr. Matthews, for instance, suggested a socialist leader would order executions in Central Park — have been dismissed as elites standing in the way of progress.

When Mr. Matthews, in a clumsy on-air exchange, compared Mr. Sanders’s victory in the Nevada caucuses to the Nazi invasion of France, it caused a firestorm. Aides to Mr. Sanders, who had family members killed in the Holocaust, savaged Mr. Matthews, and the anchor later apologized.

“The party is split between progressives and moderates, and that’s the tension we’re seeing at a channel that appeals to Democrats,” said Andrew Heyward, a former president of CBS News who teaches at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Arizona.

“MSNBC has been comfort food for people who are very upset with the Trump era,” Mr. Heyward continued. “It gets much more complicated when you have to think about the alternative.”

Plenty is on the line: In the Trump years, MSNBC’s net advertising revenue has nearly tripled, to $614 million last year from $212 million in 2014, according to Kagan, a media research firm. MSNBC also raked in $546 million in profit versus the $181 million it made in 2014, Kagan said.

Fox News faced a similar problem in 2015, when another populist candidate, Donald J. Trump, shocked establishment Republicans and openly mocked the network’s stars.

Mr. Trump feuded with the anchor Megyn Kelly and even boycotted one of the network’s debates. Fox News commentary gradually moved Trumpward, jettisoning traditional Republican regulars like George Will and hiring pro-Trump opinion hosts like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin.

As Mr. Sanders notched victories in the early-voting states, it seemed like MSNBC could be heading toward a similar intraparty dust-up.

In Las Vegas last month, Mr. Sanders’s complaints to Mr. Griffin, the MSNBC president, were so animated that afterward, the senator’s wife, Jane Sanders, offered conciliatory words to the network executive, according to the two people briefed on the exchange.

And Sanders supporters might have found some grist for their complaints on Tuesday, when MSNBC featured Biden allies like Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina. “That guy literally saved the Democratic Party,” James Carville told viewers, speaking of Mr. Clyburn’s endorsement of Mr. Biden ahead of the South Carolina primary.

But Mr. Sanders’s tough night on Tuesday — and Mr. Biden’s comeback — could begin a new phase in the relationship between the candidate and the network.

In her interview in Burlington on Wednesday, which took up the whole show, Ms. Maddow challenged Mr. Sanders about his poor showing with African-American voters on Tuesday and asked how he planned to improve turnout among his supporters. She also expressed her gratitude to the senator for appearing on the show.

“Thanks for coming to Vermont,” Mr. Sanders replied gamely.

“Of course!” Ms. Maddow said. “Any excuse.”

Then it was time for the anchor to exert her network’s influence on a different candidate.

“We are also trying and doing our damnedest to get an interview with Vice President Joe Biden, who is the other front-runner in this campaign, who I have not yet talked to over the course of this campaign,” Ms. Maddow told her viewers. “And would really love to.”