Amy Goodman rips CNN for airing Trump's empty stage instead of Sanders' speech

DemocracyNow! host Amy Goodman told CNN's Brian Stelter that his network and most other mainstream media were "manufacturing consent" for Donald Trump by giving him more airtime than other candidates.

On Sunday's edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Goodman called out CNN for broadcasting an empty stage in anticipation of Donald Trump's press conference on election night last Tuesday without ever mentioning that Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders was giving a speech to his supporters at the same time.

"Let's look at Super Tuesday 3, you had major coverage here at CNN, at MSNBC, at Fox -- all the networks across all through he night as the polls are closing," she recalled. "You see the concession speeches and the great victory speeches, you see Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Kasich, you see Donald Trump. You're waiting here at CNN, at MSNBC. They said he's going to hold a news conference... and that's it."

"Where was Bernie Sanders?" she wondered. "Well, in fact, Bernie Sanders was in Phoenix, Arizona before thousands of people and as the networks were waiting for Donald Trump and waiting and all the pundits are weighing in, they don't even say that Bernie Sanders is about to speak."

Goodman pointed out that on another election night, CNN had recorded Hillary Clinton's victory speech and broadcast it later so that the network could air Trump's election night press conference where "he sold his steaks and his magazines and his water and everything else."

"This time, they didn't even record and show after Bernie Sanders," she observed. "He was completely absent."

Using a term often used by political activist Noam Chomsky, Goodman said that the media "manufactures consent."

"This is the anniversary of the Iraq war," he reminded Stelter. "I think this exposure for Trump is frightening. Yes, there is now some critical coverage. But for the year 2015, as the snowball rolled and it got larger and larger, he got 23 times the coverage of Bernie Sanders."

Watch the video below from CNN, broadcast March 20, 2016.