CNN’s CEO batted down more criticism on Monday that his network helped contribute to the political ascent of Donald Trump, even as his organization continues to offer lopsided coverage that favors the casino tycoon more than any other 2016 presidential candidate.
“We are covering the story, and he’s been the Republican front-runner for almost a year now,” Jeff Zucker said this weekend. “I only wish that CNN had that much power to be able to create a front-runner on either side.”
Zucker, who’s responsible for giving the go-ahead at NBC Universal to Trump’s old reality TV hit “The Apprentice,” is no stranger to fending off criticism that his network’s near 24-hour coverage of Trump’s presidential campaign has helped boost the real estate mogul in the polls.
He downplayed these charges in March when critics said his network was giving Trump wall-to-wall coverage in a cynical play for ratings. As the front-runner, Trump was always going to get “a disproportionate amount of attention,” Zucker told reporters.
Trump “has been much more available than many of the others who have been or are still in the race. Just because he says ‘yes’ and has subjected himself to those interviews, and [other candidates] don’t, I’m not going to penalize him for saying ‘yes,'” Zucker said.
Nevertheless, the claim that CNN has paid more attention to Trump than any other 2016 presidential candidate is not wrong: The billionaire businessman has enjoyed more free coverage from the cable news network than any Republican or Democrat.
Further, no other cable newsroom has ignored the other Republican candidates in favor of Trump as much as CNN, according to Internet Archive data rounded up by the GDELT Project.
And in something of a contradiction to Zucker’s “front-runner” argument for the network’s Trump coverage, the time that CNN has spent on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton doesn’t even come close to comparing to the time that they’ve spent covering Trump.
