Donald Trump have been very, very good for TV news.
The Republican has nearly double the airtime of rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1,773 minutes for Trump versus 1,020 for the Democrat on the CBS, NBC, and ABC evening news broadcasts, according to a new Media Research Center NewsBusters report of the full year of coverage.
The two others in the race, libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein don’t even have a heartbeat on TV.
Johnson landed 11 seconds and Stein 3 seconds. Third party candidate Evan McMullen received 32 seconds, but mostly because he got in the race late.
MRC analysts examined all 1,713 campaign stories on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from January 1 through August 31 (1,472 full reports, 104 brief items and an additional 137 stories on other topics that included some discussion of the campaign or candidates).
Not surprisingly, Trump has drawn most of the attention: 1,773 minutes of evening news airtime during the first eight months of the year, far ahead of Clinton’s 1,020 minutes of coverage. Since the primaries ended on June 7, the networks’ focus has stayed on Trump, who received 705 minutes of coverage — much of it about various controversies — vs. 437 minutes for Clinton.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
