TV Hits Trump With 85% Negative News vs. 78% Positive Press for Harris

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TV Hits Trump With 85% Negative News vs. 78% Positive Press for Harris | mrcNewsBusters

One week before Election Day, a new analysis from the Media Research Center finds that broadcast evening news coverage of the 2024 presidential race has been the most lopsided in history. Since July, ABC, CBS and NBC have treated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to 78 percent positive coverage, while these same networks have pummeled former Republican President Donald Trump with 85 percent negative coverage. (See Methodology explanation at the end of this post.)

The difference in coverage between the two candidates is far greater than in 2016, when both Trump and then-challenger Hillary Clinton received mostly negative coverage (91% negative for Trump, vs. 79% negative for Clinton). It’s even greater than in 2020, when Joe Biden was treated to 66 percent positive coverage, vs. 92 percent negative for Trump.

The main reason for the imbalance: Since July, the Big Three have swamped their audiences with more than 230 minutes of airtime — virtually all of it negative — about an array of personal controversies surrounding the former President, yet provided extremely light coverage or altogether ignored many controversies involving Vice President Harris. Instead, Harris’s coverage has been larded with enthusiastic quotes from pro-Harris voters, creating a positive “vibe” for the Democrat even as network reporters criticize Trump themselves.

For this report, MRC analysts reviewed all 660 stories about the presidential campaign that aired on the ABC, CBS or NBC evening newscasts from July 21 (the day President Biden ended his candidacy) through October 25, including weekends. Total coverage added up to 24 hours, 15 minutes, almost evenly divided among the three networks: 8 hours, 20 minutes on NBC; 8 hours, 13 minutes on CBS; and 7 hours, 42 minutes on ABC). Details:

■ Zeroing in on Trump: Three months ago, the networks seemingly couldn’t get enough of Kamala Harris, giving her rock-star coverage after she succeeded President Biden as the 2024 Democratic nominee. But following the September 10 presidential debate, the networks shifted attention away from Harris, spending significantly more airtime targeting Trump.

From the date Harris entered the race on July 21 through September 10, she received 353 minutes of network evening news coverage, virtually identical to the 355 minutes given Trump during the same period. Since then, however, TV has focused nearly twice as much attention on Trump as Harris: 398 minutes for the former President, compared to just 230 minutes for the Vice President.

The additional airtime for Trump was hardly meant as a gift. Instead, it reflected the networks’ intensive focus on Trump controversies, providing opportunities for negative news coverage.

■ Flooding the zone with Trump controversies: Much as they did in 2016, 2020, and throughout his presidency, the networks anointed themselves as the Trump Police, scolding and correcting the former President whenever they decided he’d crossed one of their lines.

Of the 753 minutes of evening news airtime devoted to Trump since July 21, nearly one-third (230 minutes, or 31%) has been about personal controversies. This compares to barely five percent of Harris’s airtime (28 minutes, out of a total 583 minutes of coverage) spent on similar topics.

The list of top controversies reflects liberals’ main talking points against Trump. Garnering the most airtime: the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, including Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election was rigged (47 minutes). Another 30 minutes was spent amplifying claims that Trump is a “danger to democracy” and/or a “fascist” who would use the military to persecute his opponents.

The Big Three spent 18 minutes criticizing Trump for disseminating supposed misinformation about the Biden administration’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton; 15 minutes pounding Trump for saying some immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets; plus an additional 13 minutes floating concerns about Trump’s age and fitness for another term as President. On each one of these topics, the networks hammered Trump with coverage ranging from 97 to 100 percent negative.

Harris faced no such onslaught. Over fourteen weeks, evening news viewers heard a scant 5 minutes, 22 seconds of GOP criticisms that she’s too liberal, barely one-sixth the airtime spent on the claim Trump is a “fascist.” None of this coverage included any criticisms of Harris from either network reporters or nonpartisan sources.

In July and August, the networks spent 7 minutes, 8 seconds thrilling over the prospect that Harris would make history as the first woman President. But in October, as polls began to trend in Trump’s direction, the networks spent 3 minutes, 5 seconds worrying that voters might be reluctant to choose Harris because of her gender.

Some anti-Harris topics have been completely ignored. MRC’s Geoffrey Dickens detailed five stories — including questions about whether portions of Harris’s 2009 book were plagiarized, her continued advocacy for taxpayer funding for sex reassignment surgery for prison inmates, and the story that her husband, Doug Emhoff, may have hit his girlfriend in the face while in France in 2012. None have been mentioned on any of the Big Three evening newscasts during our study period.