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…
On TV News, Non-Candidate Biden Eclipsed All Besides Clinton and Trump
On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden ended his flirtation with a bid for the 2016 Democratic nomination, but only after an extended period in which the broadcast networks gave his non-candidacy more airtime than that of any declared Republican or Democratic candidate other than frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. From August 1, when the networks began covering the possibility of a…
Hillary Gets the Most Press; Bernie and Biden Get the Best Press
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…
Fiorina Now 2nd-Most Covered GOP Candidate; Bush Falls to 6th
Since the September 16 GOP debate, the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts have significantly ramped up their coverage of businesswoman Carly Fiorina, giving her more than 15 percent of the GOP candidates’ airtime over the past two weeks. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush attracted just three percent of TV news coverage; in the first six months of 2015, Bush dominated the coverage with 36 percent…
It’s a Miracle! Pope Gets Eight Times Network Coverage of Trump
He’s only been in the US for a few days, but the Pope has already accomplished what 16 GOP presidential candidates haven’t been able to for months: getting more network coverage than Donald Trump.
During the first three days Pope Francis was in the U.S., the news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC spent eight times the amount of coverage on the Pope than they did on presidential hopeful Donald…
Where Socialist Bernie Sanders Is Winning: The Sunday Show Primary
On Sunday, Hillary Clinton will make her first appearance on the Sunday morning political shows as a 2016 presidential candidate when she sits down with CBS’s John Dickerson on Face the Nation. She’s getting a very late start: While Clinton has so far avoided interviews with the “Big Three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) Sunday shows, 18 other presidential candidates have made a total of 106 appearances…
CNN Spends 78 Percent of GOP Campaign Coverage on Trump
A Media Research Center study finds that, over a two week period, coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign took up nearly 78 percent of all CNN’s prime time GOP campaign coverage – 580 minutes out of a total of 747 minutes. All 16 non-Trump candidates got a combined total of just 167 minutes.
MRC Study: TV News Obsesses Over Trump, Ignores Other Candidates
Two weeks after the first GOP presidential debate of Campaign ’16, the broadcast networks continue to obsess over Donald Trump to the near-exclusion of the other sixteen Republican presidential candidates. An MRC analysis of the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news broadcasts during the two weeks prior to the August 6 debate (including weekends) found Trump accounted for 55% of all GOP candidate airtime…
TV News: An Avalanche of Trump Coverage, Not Much for Others
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…
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ABC: Threat to Sharks by Girl in Bikini Trumps PP Scandal
Over the past 9 days, ABC News has spent a grand total of 46 seconds on Planned Parenthood executives trying to sell pieces of aborted babies for a profit. Yet, ABC’s Good Morning America on July 23, found 2 minutes to discuss how a beauty pageant contestant might be posing a threat to sharks.
Networks Give 2X More Coverage to Confederate Flag Than ISIS Recruits
Despite briefly mentioning at least six reported instances of American citizens joining ISIS in June, and multiple FBI warnings about ISIS’s influence in the United States, the networks chose to devote more time to the “threat” posed by the existence of the Confederate flag.
The evening news shows of ABC, CBS and NBC spent just 17 minutes, 35 seconds on the threat ISIS poses to American, and 37…
June 2015: Gay Marriage Decision Dominates Net Coverage
The hunt for convicted killers who escaped a prison in New York State was the most covered topic on the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS and NBC for the month of June. This was closely followed by coverage of the brutal massacre at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, with considerable amounts of air time dedicated to the 2016 presidential campaign, the ISIS terror threat and the Supreme…
Nets Covered Candidate Obama's 2008 Europe Trip 13X More Than Jeb’s
Back in 2008, the three broadcast evening newscasts showered then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama with good press during his trip to Europe that July, giving it a total of 92 minutes over an eight-day period (July 20 to July 27, 2008). GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s trip to Europe last week didn’t garner a single mention on ABC’s World News Tonight or the CBS Evening News.
MRC Study: TV News Protects Obama from His ISIS Failures
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…
