Sunday Read: Analysis ... Yang's got a beef with MSNBC; he says he's being marginilized

 Candidate asks for apology from network

SCREEN CAPTURE / CNN

MSNBC coverage of Andrew Yang has been lacking, says the candidate and his supporters.

Being interviewed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, presidential candidate Andrew Yang, is genuinely aggrieved by the treatment he's receiving from rival network MSNBC, which seems to be giving him short shrift as compared to other candidates.

It would seem to be simply an oversight, but Yang has been marginilized enough times by the news network to make one suspect that something more nefarious is at work here.

Blitzer asked Yang about his recent performance on the debate held Nov. 20. “It went on for more than two hours. You only got to speak and we did some checking, you can see over there, about six and a half minutes or so. That’s probably half that some of the other candidates got. Do you think that was fair?”

In his typical, nonconfrontational style, Yang then proceeded to explain why he felt slighted. “America saw it, and I went 32 minutes without a question and I was raising my hand trying to get a word in edgewise during that time,” he noted, adding “So when you all (CNN) moderated the debate it was straight up the middle, it was professional and we got real substantive topics.”

MSNBC invited Yang to speak Saturday (Nov. 23) but the candidate turned them down. Yang told CNN he’d be “happy” to appear on the network if they’ll “apologize on-air” to him, presumably for how he was treated at the debate.

The lopsided time allotted Yang was obvious during the debate when members of the Yang Gang got on social media and started the hashtag #LetYangSpeak.

The day after the debate, protesters gathered outside of the MSNBC-hosted debate on Wednesday night in defense of 2020 presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, with many of them accusing the liberal network of a negative bias.

Members of the #YangGang were seen chanting "M-S-N-B-C, hands off our democracy!" at the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, the site of the Democrats' fifth debate.

Yang received the least amount of speaking time of the 10 participants on the debate stage with 6:48, roughly half of the time Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., received.

In a recent Iowa poll from CNN and the Des Moines Register, the entrepreneur reached 3 percent support, tying him with Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., along with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and billionaire donor Tom Steyer.

SCREEN CAPTURE / MSNBC

Andrew Yang is missing from a recent MSNBC graphic even though he polled at 3%.

However, in an on-air graphic of that poll, Yang was missing from the roster -- even though it included former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who polled at 2 percent, and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., at 1 percent.

"Why does @MSNBC keep leaving out @AndrewYang on their graphics (actually at 3% here)?" political commentator Ian Bremmer asked Sunday. "This has happened on a number of occasions, I haven’t seen with any other candidate. It’s not just a slip-up. Unacceptable."

MSNBC offered an apology to Yang later Sunday, claiming it "inadvertently" left him off the graphic and shared a graphic that included him as well as the several candidates who had polled at zero percent.

The Yang campaign didn't seem to welcome the apology. It was not the first time Yang has been left off MSNBC graphics.

"Thank you @MSNBC, for making this apology for the 15th time. The #YangGang is very excited for #16," Yang campaign manager Zach Graumann reacted.

The candidate later tweeted his disgruntlement with MSNBC.

We can expect an occasional misstep by MSNBC, but if what Yang has claimed, the network has left him out of the conversation at least a dozen times. That's inexcusable and unacceptable.

Bovada, which tracks betting odds for the candidates, says: "If you asked us about Andrew Yang’s chances of winning when he first announced his intentions to run for President, we would have answered with a ‘probably not’. However, we’ve seen him connect with voters very easily, particularly younger voters, and with the improved odds we’ve seen from bookmakers, we definitely are not ruling him out. Yang has seen a recent surge in his odds as his social presence has soared and he secured a spot in the upcoming Presidential debate scheduled later this year in June."

No matter the outcome of the primaries, one cannot discount what Yang has been able to accomplished. What Yang has done, coming from nowhere to become one of the top six candidates for the Democrats is nothing short of extraordinary. With no national organization or party backing, he has become a viable candidate by introducing ideas and issues such as the Universal Basic Income, or as he calls it, the "Freedom Dividend," to talking about 21st century topics such as the impact of robotics and artificial intelligence in the context of what he calls the "fourth industrial revolution."

Yang's treatment by one of the major networks is something most Asian Americans are familiar with. We are too often shunted aside and go unheard, spoken over and ignored. We are too familiar with being marginalized. 

Yang is resonating with the youth and disaffected. As hard as MSNBC would like to admit, although he is unlikely to win the Democratic nomination next summer, he deserves to be treated as a serious candidate and with respect. 

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