A new study shows President Joe Biden has received less negative coverage from U.S. media than any president in the last 30 years.
The study found that about 19% of the coverage of Biden’s fir 60 days days has been negative over the first 60 days of his administration, which ranked best among presidents of the last three decades. Former Presidents Bill Clinton (28%), George W. Bush (28%), Barack Obama (20%), and Donald Trump (62%) all saw more negative coverage than Biden.
“While the media landscape has changed dramatically since Clinton’s presidential inauguration, the Center has been able to conduct a long-term comparison for each of the recent administrations across a smaller subset of outlets and variables,” Pew Research Center wrote of its findings.
The difference in coverage between the early days of Trump’s presidency compared to Biden’s was particularly stark, with negative stories about Trump outnumbering positive ones by a “four-to-one” ratio.
“When it comes to the tone of coverage, both new administrations received more negative assessments than positive assessments of their activities,” Pew wrote. “But while the percentage of Biden stories with an overall negative assessment (32%), modestly outnumbered the share with positive assessments (23%), stories with negative assessments of Trump outnumbered those with positive assessments by four-to-one (44% to 11%). The same share of stories about each president were neither positive nor negative (45% for both Biden and Trump).”
The study also found a difference in how stories about Trump were framed when compared to Biden, with the media spending more time focusing on Biden’s policy agenda compared to Trump’s “leadership and character.”
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“Another stark difference in the early coverage of the Biden and Trump administrations was in how stories were framed,” Pew wrote. “About two-thirds of Biden stories (65%) were framed around ideology and agenda, while about one-third (35%) focused on leadership and character. With Trump, the numbers were roughly reversed, with 74% framed around leadership and character and 26% around policy and ideology.”
