A new study sheds light on how negative coverage has dominated the GOP primary race among newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS.
Between Jan. 1 and July 31, a whopping 90% of the coverage of former President Trump from evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC was negative, according to research from the conservative media watchdog Media Research Center (MRC) exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital. Trump’s closest GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, received negative coverage 78% of the time.
Meanwhile, the ABC’s “World News Tonight,” “NBC Nightly News” and “CBS Evening News” offered considerably more favorable coverage to former Vice President Mike Pence, who received just 57% of bad airtime. While he was frequently demonized by the media during his time in office, Pence is often hailed for rejecting Trump’s efforts in overturning the 2020 election results on Jan. 6.
The study tallied the amount of airtime the leading GOP candidates have received on the newscasts from January through July. Trump dominated with an astonishing 664 minutes followed by DeSantis with 126, Pence with 63, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley with 17, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott with 12, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with nine, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson with four and former Texas Rep. Will Hurd with only two minutes of coverage.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum received just 30 seconds of coverage between when he first launched his bid in early June through the end of July while entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who entered the race back in February and has climbed in the polls, earned only 28 seconds of coverage.
Noted in the study is how then-candidate Trump amassed 116 minutes of coverage during the same time period in 2015, which at the time dominated the field of candidates but pales in comparison to the coverage he has received in 2023.
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MRC delved into the leading topics that dominated coverage on the three broadcast networks. Two-hundred and eight minutes between January and July was collectively focused on Trump’s classified documents probe followed by 170 minutes to Trump’s hush money case out of New York and 91 minutes was allotted on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe in Trump’s actions following the 2020 election. Meanwhile, 40 minutes were dedicated to DeSantis’ culture war battles, 27 were dedicated to Pence’s role on Jan. 6 and 14 were dedicated to the former VP’s handling of classified documents.
The study also highlighted how little coverage policy issues have received in the networks’ reporting on the presidential race. Out of 820 minutes of total airtime, just 11 focused on abortion, eight were focused on illegal immigration, six were for the Ukraine war, and three were for gun rights. Issues relating to the economy and inflation received just seconds of coverage.
“Eight years ago, the rap on the media was that it was so focused on one celebrity candidate (Trump), it deprived GOP voters of a real choice. This time around, TV’s obsession with Trump is far more intense, which means that if rank-and-file Republicans are interested in comparing the candidates, they’ll need to rely on events such as Wednesday’s debate — not the daily drumbeat of Trump courtroom news,” the MRC wrote.
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