Coverage of Trump and Harris in presidential race ‘most lopsided in history’, 85% negative for Trump: report

There is coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC News about the presidential race between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris the most ‘skewed in history’, according to a new study released a week before the elections.

Analysis of the Media Research Center (MRC) Published Monday, it showed that Harris has received 78% positive coverage on the broadcast evening news since July, compared to Trump, who has been the subject of 85% negative coverage on the same networks.

“The difference in coverage between the two candidates is much larger than in 2016, when both Trump and then-challenger Hillary Clinton received mostly negative coverage (91% negative for Trump, versus 79% negative for Clinton),” MRC analysts said. .

For the third year in a row, more Americans “don’t trust” the media than those who do

The difference between coverage of Trump and Harris is even greater than in 2020, “when Joe Biden was treated to 66% positive coverage, compared to 92% negative for Trump,” the study said.

MRC reported that ABC, CBS and NBC spent more than 200 minutes of airtime, much of it negative, harping on the controversies surrounding Trump, while glossing over or, in many cases, outright ignoring the controversies involving Harris – as accusations of plagiarism and accusations surrounding Trump. her husband, Doug Emhoff.

Read on the Fox News app

“Instead, Harris’ reporting is peppered with glowing quotes from pro-Harris voters, creating a positive ‘vibe’ for the Democrat even as network reporters criticize Trump himself,” MRC writes.

What the latest Fox News polls are in the 2024 election show

Analysts reviewed more than 600 segments about the presidential race that aired on ABC, CBS or NBC, starting the day President Biden suspended his candidacy in late July and running through Oct. 25.

After weeks of favorable coverage of Harris as the Democratic candidate, the three networks apparently changed their tune after the Harris-Trump debate in September, the MRC analysts found.

“The networks shifted attention away from Harris and devoted significantly more airtime to Trump,” the report said.

“From the date Harris entered the race, July 21, through September 10, she received 353 minutes of network evening news coverage, virtually identical to the 355 minutes Trump received during the same period. Since then, however, TV has paid almost twice as much attention to the race. attention to Trump as Harris: 398 minutes for the former president, compared to just 230 minutes for the vice president,” the study found.

“The extra airtime for Trump was hardly intended as a gift. Instead, it reflected the networks’ intense focus on Trump controversies, which provided opportunities for negative reporting,” MRC said.

About 31% of the 753 minutes of evening news devoted to Trump since July 21 highlighted his personal controversies, the survey found. “This compares with just five percent of Harris’ airtime (28 minutes, out of a total of 583 minutes of reporting) being spent on similar topics.

The networks repeatedly cited Trump’s Jan. 6 claim that the 2020 election was rigged while labeling him a “danger to democracy,” MRC reported.

By comparison, “Harris has not experienced an attack like this. For fourteen weeks, evening news viewers heard just five minutes and 22 seconds of criticism of the Republican Party for being too liberal, barely one-sixth of the airtime devoted to the claim that Trump is a “fascist.” “None of this reporting included any criticism of Harris from network reporters or nonpartisan sources,” MRC analysts noted.

“When you add it all up, the media coverage of the past three months is more skewed than that of any presidential election in the modern media age,” the report said.

“So if Donald Trump regains the White House next week, the media’s campaign against him will have achieved nothing except the further erosion of their own reputations.”

The MRC findings come shortly after a Gallup survey revealed that trust in the media remains both historically and consistently low. Only 31% of respondents expressed a “great” or “fair amount” of trust in the media to report the news appropriately.

“For the third consecutive year, more American adults do not trust the media at all (36%) than have a lot or a fair amount of trust in it. Another 33% of Americans express ‘not very much’ trust,” Gallup Senior Editor Megan Brenan wrote.

ABC, CBS and NBC News did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Alexander Hall contributed to this report.

Original article source: Coverage of Trump and Harris in presidential race ‘most lopsided in history’, 85% negative for Trump: report