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Newsbusters analysis: Network TV Blasts Trump with 92% Negative Coverage; 66% Positive for Biden

Oct 28, 2020

By Dave Andrusko

Like many of you, I am a huge fan of Newsbusters. There are many reasons, so let me list just a couple as the last post of the day.

Those of us who don’t watch much network (or cable) news know from what we do see that with a few exceptions here and there, there is a phalanx of media outlets hostile to President Trump. Among many other tasks, Newsbusters quantity—and gives direct quotes from—the serial attacks on pro-life President Trump.

(There is much else—Newsbusters dissects “comedies,” dramas, and the like for their biases. Again, with a handful of exceptions, they are rife with heavy-handed  pro-abortion propaganda. But our interest in this post is the political coverage.)

Intuitively, we know how one-sided the coverage is, but it is important to be able to citeNever More Biased: TV Blasts Trump with 92% Negative Coverage; 66% Positive for Biden,” as Rich Noyes did yesterday. Here are the three core paragraphs from a fine analysis:

Four years ago, the Big Three broadcast evening newscasts tried to destroy Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign with historically negative press coverage. This year, those newscasts are doubling down, with coverage that is even more hostile to the Republican. Meanwhile, his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, is enjoying mostly positive coverage and a friendly media that’s virtually ignoring all topics — such as the scandal swirling around his son, Hunter — that might harm his prospects. ..

This time around, it’s obvious that the networks are pouring their energy into confronting and criticizing the President, not equally covering both campaigns. During the twelve weeks we examined, Trump received 839 minutes of coverage, compared to just 269 minutes of airtime for Biden, a three-to-one disparity.

Even more lopsided, our analysts found ten times more evaluative statements about Trump than Biden: 890 comments about the President, of which 822 (92.4%) were negative, vs. 68 (7.6%) that were positive. Note that these totals do not include statements about the candidates’ prospects in the campaign horse race (i.e., standings in the polls, chances to win, etc.), nor does it include partisan statements from the candidates or their surrogates.

“Doubling down.” After 2016, you would have imagined the networks could be more partisan. But, as they say, you would be wrong.

Just something to think about with less than a week to go until November 3. My strong suspicion is in addition to suppressing all news that could possibly hurt pro-abortion Biden, they will magnify—when they don’t just flat out make it up—negative news about pro-life President Trump.

Categories: Media Bias
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