‘Signalgate’ Racks up Seven Times More Coverage than Yemen Airstrikes

Last week, ABC, CBS, and NBC spent nearly 100 minutes covering leaked messages from a private Signal chat for Trump administration officials, in just the first 96 hours after the messages were published. But those same networks spent only 13 minutes covering the actual military operation that was discussed in those leaked messages.

In mid-March, the United States launched a still-ongoing series of airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, in retaliation for more than 100 reported attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea. The operation, which would ultimately prove successful, initially received moderate coverage from broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC — until two weeks later, when Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published screenshots showing Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other U.S. officials discussing the strikes in a private Signal chat.

The broadcast networks, which had long since dropped their light coverage of the strikes, immediately flooded the airwaves with the “Signalgate” story. That night, all three networks front-loaded their evening newscasts with lengthy reports about the mishap. In that single evening, the networks devoted more combined air time to the Signal messages than they’d spent on the airstrikes for the entire duration of the military operation two weeks prior.