Blog ››› December 11, 2015 9:40 AM EST
››› ERIC BOEHLERT
81:1.
Does that ratio seem out of
whack? That's the ratio of TV airtime that ABC World News Tonight has devoted
to Donald Trump's campaign (81 minutes) versus the amount of TV time World News
Tonight has devoted to Bernie Sanders' campaign this year. And even that one
minute for Sanders is misleading because the actual number is closer to 20
seconds.
For the entire year.
That's the rather stunning
revelation from the Tyndall Report,
which tracks the various flagship nightly news programs on NBC, CBS and ABC.
The Report's campaign findings cover the network evening newscasts from January
1 through the end of November.
The results confirm two media
extremes in play this year, and not just at ABC News. The network newscasts are
wildly overplaying Trump, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of
primary voter support, while at the same time wildly underplaying Sanders, who
regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support. (Sanders'
supporters have long complained
about the candidate's lack of coverage.)
Obviously, Trump is the GOP
frontrunner and its reasonable that he would get more attention than Sanders,
who's running second for the Democrats. But 234 total network minutes for Trump
compared to just 10 network minutes for Sanders, as the Tyndall Report found?
Andrew Tyndall provided the
breakdown by network of Sanders' 10 minutes of coverage, via email [emphasis
added]:
CBS Evening News: 6.4 minutes
NBC Nightly News: 2.9 minutes
ABC World News: 0.3
But how can they be? ABC News,
for instance, clearly devoted more than 20 seconds to covering the Democratic debates,
which featured news of Sanders, right?
As Tyndall explained to me,
the number "counts stories filed about the Sanders campaign or from the
Sanders campaign. Obviously he is mentioned in passing in other coverage of the
Democratic field overall, specifically his performance in the debates."
So in terms of stand-alone
campaign stories this year, it's been 234 minutes for Trump, compared to 10
minutes for Sanders. And at ABC World News Tonight, it's been 81 minutes for
Trump and less than one minute for Sanders.
Other Tyndall Report findings:
*Trump has received more
network coverage than all the Democratic candidates combined.
*Trump has accounted for 27
percent of all campaign coverage his year.
*Republican Jeb Bush received
56 minutes of coverage, followed by Ben Carson's 54 minutes and Marco Rubio's
22.
Did you notice the Bush
figure? He's garnered 56 minutes of network news coverage, far outpacing
Sanders, even though he is currently wallowing
in fifth place in the polls among Republicans. And you know who has also
received 56 minutes of network news compared to Sanders' 10? Joe Biden and his
decision not to run for president.
Meanwhile, I can hear
supporters of Ted Cruz complaining that based on Tyndall's analysis, the Texas
Republican has only received seven minutes of coverage this year and look where
he is in the polls. That's a fair point. But also note that Cruz has only recently
risen in the primary polls, whereas Sanders has been a solid second for
many, many months. (A new
poll this week shows Sanders leading the New Hampshire primary.)
Close observers of trends in
network news might also say ABC's paltry Sanders coverage isn't surprising
considering the network's flagship news program has recently backed off
political coverage, as well as hard news in general.
From
the Washington Post this summer:
"World News" devoted
half as many minutes to Washington stories as CBS did during the first four
months of the year, and about 40 percent less than did NBC, according to Andrew
Tyndall, who tracks the networks' newscasts through his eponymous newsletter.
In perhaps a first for a
national newscast, "World News" no longer has a full-time
correspondent reporting on Congress. Such stories are handled on an ad hoc
basis by reporter Jonathan
Karl, whose primary beats are the White House and political campaigns.
In this case though, that
explanation doesn't work because while World News Tonight might be shying away
from news out of Washington, D.C., Tyndall's analysis shows ABC has produced more
campaign coverage this year than CBS Evening News; 261 minutes vs. 247 minutes
for CBS.
Look at that ABC number again:
261 minutes devoted to campaign coverage this year, and less than one minute of
that has specifically been for Sanders. How does that even happen?
So no, Sanders didn't get
virtually ignored this year by World News Tonight because the show's cutting
back on campaign coverage. Sanders got virtually ignored by ABC because there
was a conscious decision to do so.
And before anyone suggests ABC
has somehow been in the pocket of the Clinton campaign and that's why Sanders
got slighted, note that World News Tonight has set aside roughly the same
amount of time this year to cover Republican-fed controversies surrounding
Clinton's email and details about the Benghazi terror attack, as it has to
cover Clinton's actual campaign.
Any way you look at it, 81:1
is a ratio that means there's something very wrong with the campaign coverage.
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