2016 Postmortem

Complaints about coverage are nothing new for Sanders, who has criticized the press since well before he was elected mayor of Burlington in 1981.

"I chuckled when I saw him complain about the media (last weekend) because in his early years that used to be part of the playbook — that we didn't cover his events," says WCAX-TV news director Anson Tebbetts, who has covered Sanders for decades.

The criticism has gone both ways. Vermont reporters have long chafed at Sanders' unwillingness to answer questions outside his comfort zone. After the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shootings three years ago, Sanders refused to speak to Seven Days about his views on gun rights for nearly three months.

"We've all been in a place where you're covering a news conference and Sen. Sanders doesn't want to go off-topic," Tebbetts says.