Since the nominating conventions in July, Donald Trump has enjoyed significantly more airtime on broadcast networks than rival Hillary, but almost all of it—91 percent—has been negative, the Media Research Center found.
Moreover, the networks spent a disproportionate amount of time covering his personal controversies (440 minutes) such as his treatment of women and release of his tax returns, compared to Clinton’s (185 minutes), discussing topics like her health and email scandal.
The results show neither candidate was celebrated by the media (as Obama was in 2008), but network reporters went out of their way to hammer Trump day after day, while Clinton was largely out of their line of fire.
Our analysts found 184 opinionated statements about Hillary Clinton, split between 39 positive statements (21%) vs. 145 negative (79%). Those same broadcasts included more than three times as many opinionated statements about Trump, 91 percent of which (623) were negative vs. just nine percent positive (63).
Even when they were critical of Hillary Clinton — for concealing her pneumonia, for example, or mischaracterizing the FBI investigation of her e-mail server — network reporters always maintained a respectful tone in their coverage.
This was not the case with Trump, who was slammed as embodying “the politics of fear,” or a “dangerous” and “vulgar” “misogynistic bully” who had insulted vast swaths of the American electorate. Reporters also bluntly called out Trump for lying in his public remarks in a way they never did with Clinton, despite her own robust record of false statements.
Here’s a glimpse of what the coverage looked like:
If one thing really is rigged this election cycle, it’s the media.