Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, has criticised CNN’s “biased” US election coverage, accusing the network of “journalistic malpractice” for counting superdelegates in their official tally before the Democratic Party’s convention.
During an on-air interview Sunday, Uygur slammed CNN and other MSM for racing to announce Hillary Clinton as the presumptive winner of the Democratic nomination Tuesday night, weeks before superdelegates have actually cast their vote.
“First, let’s just acknowledge what are actual facts, that the superdelegates do not vote until the convention. In fact, if they’re not at the convention, their votes won’t bet counted at all, which is almost never said on television,” Uygur said.
“Brian, you guys, and I mean all of the establishment press, totally tilted the playing field here from day one by counting those superdelegates,” Uygur told CNN’s Brian Stelter.
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Uygur criticised the network for including superdelegate pledges in their ‘official tally’, which pushes Clinton far ahead of Bernie Sanders, when the superdelegates don’t actually vote until the convention on July 25 - and as Uygur points out, superdelegates have been known to change their position despite their pledge.
“Superdelegates do switch their votes all the time, they switched it in 2008. Hillary Clinton had a 100-superdelegate lead which completely vanished in 2008,” pointed out The Young Turks host.
“But if you count them in the official tally, when you know they can, and often do switch their votes, and have not voted yet, that is simply incorrect,” he added, before saying, “that’s not journalism.”
He asked the CNN host why the network had counted the superdelegates “from day one, which was absolutely incorrect, it was in fact journalistic malpractice” which indicates “an establishment bias.”
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RT America’s Redacted Tonight presenter Lee Camp has also pointed out that superdelegate votes do not count until they are cast in person at the convention, and that these superdelegates could switch their allegiances from Clinton to Sanders.
“I’m going to say something shocking here, something that is basically never heard on any mainstream news channel,” he said.
“Here goes: superdelegates don’t vote until the convention on July 25.”
READ MORE: ‘MSM biased against any candidate who can strip them of power & wealth’ - Cenk Uygur
Camp also noted that the FBI could - crucially - still indite Clinton before the July 25 convention over the ongoing email and server scandal - a move that would certainly have a heavy impact on her superdelegate pledges.
Clinton has not been officially declared the party’s nominee, though she has already claimed the position. Ahead of the official California primary result she has 2,497 delegates and 571 superdelegates, while Sanders has 1,663 delegates and 48 superdelegates.