During the past three months, the big broadcast networks have essentially stopped covering most of the GOP presidential candidates, a lack of national news attention that presumably affects the national poll ratings used to determine which candidates are included in televised debates. Instead of covering the top 10 Republican candidates, or the entire current field of 15 candidates, the networks have now essentially pared down the field to five candidates: Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina.
MRC Study
By NB Staff | November 7, 2015 | 10:35 AM EST
Last week, a Media Research Center study documented how ABC, CBS and NBC were using loaded labels to paint House Republicans, especially the Freedom Caucus, as ideologues who are outside the American political mainstream. Now, several leading conservative Congressmen have sent us statements blasting the networks for their slant. “Only in this town does doing what you told voters you said you were going to do mean you are ‘ultra-conservative’ or ‘far-right,’ Freedom Caucus chairman Jim Jordan told NewsBusters.
By Rich Noyes | October 28, 2015 | 10:05 AM EDT
Over the past four weeks, as the broadcast networks have covered the House leadership contest, reporters have gone out of their way to relentlessly paint House Republicans, especially the Freedom Caucus, as ideologues who are outside the American political mainstream.
From September 25 to October 23, MRC analysts reviewed all 82 ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news stories about John Boehner’s resignation as House Speaker and the race to succeed him. The coverage included a whopping 106 ideological labels of Republicans, including 35 casting conservatives as extreme: “far right,” “hardline,” “very conservative” or “ultra-conservative.”
By Rich Noyes | October 6, 2015 | 9:30 AM EDT
According to the latest statistics from the MRC’s ongoing tracking of ABC, CBS and NBC’s evening news coverage of the campaign, frontrunner Hillary Clinton has garnered 80 percent of the Democratic airtime since January 1. Her closest announced rival, the socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has received just six percent of the airtime, or about 24 minutes vs. 337 minutes for Clinton. Unlike their treatment of the prominent Republican candidates, the networks have given both Vice President Joe Biden and Sanders nearly 100 percent positive coverage.
By Rich Noyes | August 4, 2015 | 9:05 AM EDT
There are currently 17 declared candidates for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, but viewers of the three broadcast evening news shows this year have mainly heard about just two of them: former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and New York businessman Donald Trump. And even though Trump received virtually no TV news attention until he officially declared on June 16, he’s received far more network news coverage than Bush has received all year.
By Rich Noyes | June 9, 2015 | 9:11 AM EDT
In May, as ISIS terrorists captured the cities of Ramadi and Palmyra, and with FBI warnings of hundreds of radicalized sympathizers here in the U.S., ABC, CBS and NBC devoted a combined 84.5 evening news minutes to ISIS. Despite the dour news, viewers heard virtually no criticism of President Obama’s handling of the terror group — just 43 seconds in a pair of NBC Nightly News stories, or less than one percent of the coverage.
By Kyle Drennen | December 2, 2014 | 2:33 PM EST
On Sunday and Monday, the broadcast networks seized on the personal Facebook comments of mid-level congressional staffer Elizabeth Lauten criticizing the Obama daughters – devoting over 14 minutes of national news air time to the controversy in the period of two days. However, it took those same networks several days to even notice the video comments of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber crediting "the stupidity of the American voter" for passage of the law – providing only 8 minutes of coverage to the much larger scandal.
By NB Staff | November 13, 2014 | 10:58 PM EST
On Thursday night, the Fox News Channel’s (FNC) Special Report with Bret Baier spotlighted the latest study from the Media Research Center (MRC) and Newsbusters, which exposed the almost no coverage of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber telling an audience in a 2013 video that “lack of transparency” and “the stupidity of the American voter” were critical in the law’s passage.
During the show’s “Grapevine” segment, host Bret Baier noted that, while FNC and his program “feel this is something our viewers deserve to know,” the networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC “apparently, disagree.”
By NB Staff | October 27, 2014 | 1:26 PM EDT
"If it hurts the narrative of the Obama administration, it's just not covered." That's how Media Research Center president Brent Bozell summed up the stunning findings of the latest MRC study, which shows a tremendous disparity in how the liberal broadcast networks covered the 2006 midterms as opposed to this years.
By Kyle Drennen | October 24, 2014 | 6:01 PM EDT
Since the Media Research Center first published its study on Wednesday showing a glaring double standard in how the network evening newscasts covered the anti-Republican wave in the 2006 midterm election vs the likely anti-Democratic wave in 2014, various liberal pundits and journalists took to the airwaves in an effort to dismiss the findings.
By Kyle Drennen | October 24, 2014 | 2:33 PM EDT
On his Fox News show Thursday night, host Bill O'Reilly cited the Media Research Center study on the network evening newscasts censoring coverage of the 2014 midterms: "Eight years ago, the nightly network newscasts went full out to cover the campaigns, which Democrats were favored to win....But this time around, the graph is far different. At this point in time, ABC News did 36 election reports eight years ago. So far this year, zero, nothing. CBS, 58 in year 2006. 14 this year. NBC, 65 eight years ago. 11 this year. Simply stunning."
By NB Staff | October 23, 2014 | 10:05 PM EDT
On Thursday, the Fox News Channel’s (FNC) The Five spent part of its program discussing the latest study from the Media Research Center, which detailed the vast disparity in stories filed by the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC on their evening newscasts in the lead-ups to both the 2006 and 2014 midterm elections.
Co-host Eric Bolling introduced the study and its findings in the show’s second segment: “A new Media Research Center study shows the network evening newscasts have essentially blacked out bad election news for Democrats.”