We may not know the results of the election yet, but one thing we can say for sure is that the news coverage of the election was absolute garbage. According to a new study, broadcast evening news coverage reached unprecedented levels of bias, giving Democratic candidate Kamala Harris far more favorable airtime than former President Donald Trump. This stands as the most extreme media disparity in presidential campaign history.
The study, released by the Media Research Center, showed “evaluative coverage of Harris — excluding “horse race” assessments — on ABC, CBS and NBC was 78% positive vs. 22% negative.” As for Trump, he received “just 15% positive press, vs. 85% negative coverage.”
“Subtracting Trump’s positive press from Harris’s, the advantage to the Democratic nominee was 63 points, the greatest in the modern media age.”
The previous worst display of imbalanced campaign coverage came just four years ago. In 2020, the MRC found former Vice President Joe Biden basked in 66% positive network coverage, vs. just 8% positive coverage for then-President Trump, a 58-point imbalance in favor of the Democrats. (That year’s coverage was also the most negative for any presidential nominee, even worse than what Trump received in 2016 and this year.)
While the MRC’s presidential campaign studies only reach back to 2016, similar studies were conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) from 1988 through 2008. Using a similar methodology, they found the networks tipped heavily in favor of Illinois Senator Barack Obama in 2008 (68% positive press), vs. just 33% positive for Arizona Senator John McCain, a Democratic advantage of 35 points. […]
— Read More: pjmedia.com
