Newsbusters By Rich Noyes
With the the third Republican presidential debate set for Wednesday, the Big Three broadcast networks have abandoned their coverage of former President Donald Trump’s Republican presidential challengers. Instead, their evening newscasts have assumed the challenger role themselves, pounding the frontrunner with overwhelmingly (93%) negative coverage.
Presidential election campaigns are a time for a party to showcase its ideas, but the networks are also suppressing Republicans’ policy agenda in favor of overwhelming coverage of the legal cases brought against Trump by various Democratic prosecutors. Less than seven percent of the GOP coverage has been about the issues (27 minutes), vs. 320 minutes (77%) spent on Trump’s legal situation.
The Media Research Center analyzed all coverage of the Republican presidential candidates and campaign on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from August 1 through October 31. (Our analysis of coverage from January 1 through July 31 can be found here.) Key findings…
