Sanders, Biden Step Up Media Appearances Following Super Tuesday.
CUPP: The two Democratic presidential candidates are known to have a bad case of allergies to the media. Joe Biden has mostly avoided all but friendly interviews. Bernie Sanders has been vocal about his disdain for the corporate media. He's also been known to lose his temper whenever questions he doesn't like. But the day after his disappointing Super Tuesday, a cheerful Sanders greeted Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, a network he and his allies have long complained about. His campaign is reportedly in final talks to appear in a town hall on that network. He's also doing a Fox News town hall. The senator has already also appeared in three town halls on CNN and he'll be on with our Jake Tapper on Sunday. As for Biden, he sat down with CBS in the today show this week. So now that it's a two-man race, will Sanders and Biden change their media approaches? With me now is CNN Chief Media Correspondent, Host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," Brian Stelter. So Sanders campaign manager once called MSNBC's coverage terrible. Is this decision to go on MSNBC now born out of necessity?</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I do think he's seeking votes wherever he can, given how strong Biden is performing and he knows he needs to reach the MSNBC audience.</s>CUPP: Sure.</s>STELTER: But to your point also doing a Fox News town hall on Monday ...</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>STELTER: ... right before the next Super Tuesday contest. Really interesting.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>STELTER: What all of this shows is that earned media is beating a paid media.</s>CUPP: Right.</s>STELTER: Earned media means CNN, it means news coverage of your campaign because it's newsworthy.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>STELTER: Bloomberg went the other way. He went with paid media. He was buying $500 million in ads.</s>CUPP: Right. Yes.</s>STELTER: A week ago, Bloomberg was all we could talk about.</s>CUPP: Right.</s>STELTER: Bloomberg was on the cover New York Magazine. He was everywhere.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>STELTER: It's amazing how fast time is flying. But it does speak to how paid media has not been as effective as earned media in this election.</s>CUPP: Well, and Sanders hasn't been unavailable to the press. He does a lot of interviews in town halls.</s>STELTER: Yes. He has been.</s>CUPP: Biden, the other end of the specter ...</s>STELTER: He's more and more careful. He's been more careful about that.</s>CUPP: He's very careful.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>CUPP: And it feels, I mean, even today, he was at a rally and I think spoke for a total of seven minutes.</s>STELTER: Right.</s>CUPP: I sort of think of him as like the George Costanza of the campaign. Like leave him on a high note, go in, make a joke, get the crowd applause and then leave before you can say anything like that.</s>STELTER: Right, because he's avoiding doing it and it's going to be a gaffe, is that the idea?</s>CUPP: It seems that way. I mean, he's been real reluctant to face the media. Does that change?</s>STELTER: And yet this rally in St. Louis he had thousands and thousands of people. He had huge crowds of this event.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>STELTER: So perhaps that speaks for itself. Perhaps that's what the campaign views as what's winning and what's working. But I think these questions about both Sanders and Biden and about their performance, about their age are only going to increase. The headline of Politico today is about the dementia election, talking about Biden, Sanders and Trump. These are awkward, sensitive things to talk about.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>STELTER: But it's getting louder and louder.</s>CUPP: It is, yes.</s>STELTER: And by the way, it's getting used against the Democrats by voices on Fox News at the same time.</s>CUPP: That's right. And Bernie supporters, I have seen a lot of Bernie supporters going after Biden's mental health.</s>STELTER: After Biden. But again all three of these contenders, they're all in their 70s.</s>CUPP: Trump has notoriously and outrageously attack the press. He's severely limited press access to the White House. As you know, he's suing a number of networks. We don't want a repeat of that, obviously. Who is the better candidate for president where press freedom is concerned in your view, just watching the media and watching these guys interact with the media.</s>STELTER: Bernie Sanders has come up with a plan trying to support local journalism that's been starving and struggling. On the other hand, he also attacks what he calls the corporate media.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>STELTER: And earlier this week he said, don't believe what you read in the media.</s>CUPP: Sounds familiar.</s>STELTER: He views the media as a foil in the same way Trump does and he taps into that same kind of anger against institutions that Trump does.</s>CUPP: Yes.</s>STELTER: Biden much more of a stay the course normalcy sort of thing. I think what we would see with Biden, same thing what we saw with Obama, we'd see the restoration of press briefings and things like. Would Sanders restore press briefings? Would he make these other steps to kind of turn back what Trump was doing and go back to what we would consider normal pre Trump? I don't know. I think those are good questions for him.</s>CUPP: Well, we'll be watching it all. It'd be interesting to see. If either of those candidates really changed their tactics, now that they're the last men standing with the media.</s>STELTER: And how it's all affected by coronavirus and what they do different, because of this thing that is surrounding all of us.</s>CUPP: It really is ...</s>STELTER: It affects every story. It could be a game changer. It could be ...</s>STELTER: It could.</s>CUPP: ... it could be the game changer of this election.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>CUPP: Brian, thanks so much for joining me.</s>STELTER: Thanks.</s>CUPP: Make sure to tune in to Brian's show tomorrow at 11:00 am Eastern on RELIABLE SOURCES. He'll have all the latest headlines on the news that matters including, yes, coronavirus. Facts are so important. So don't miss that. You'll also want to check out CNN's new podcast. Join Dr. Sanjay Gupta for Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction. Listen wherever you get your favorite podcasts. All right. That's it for me. "CNN NEWSROOM" is up next. Stick around you.