Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Tuesday that the media’s role in presidential elections needs to be studied in the wake of the 2016 contest that saw Donald Trump defeat Cruz and other candidates with the help of billions of dollars in free airtime.
“This election will be studied for the role of the media, and in particular network executives, that they made in terms of promoting the candidate that they had chosen, they wanted to win,” Cruz told Glenn Beck on Tuesday.
“For example, Trump has received now over $3 billion in free air time,” Cruz said. “Strikingly, the last 30 days, he had $500 million in free air time, 90 percent of which was positive.”
“To put that in perspective, in the entire 13 months of the campaign, the aggregate coverage of my campaign was about $500 million worth,” he added. “He got that in 30 days, and 90 percent of his was positive.”
Cruz said the billions worth of free press gave Trump a boost over his competitors, many of whom struggled for press attention.
“That has a dramatic impact on the polls, when every network becomes effectively the super PAC for the candidate they want to win the nomination,” Cruz said. “And we’re about to see that same ferocious fury now turned against Donald in an effort to elect Hillary.”
“And there’s no doubt we need to think hard about, what is the role of a handful of network executives in manipulating and trying to deceive the voters, because I think it’s a very dangerous dynamic we have right now,” he said.
