A new study has found that the corporate media’s coverage of the critical 2024 presidential election has been the most biased in history.
The study, released one week before Election Day, found that the media’s coverage has been 85% negative against President Donald Trump.
In stark contrast, the media has showered Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris with 78% positive coverage.
Analysis from the Media Research Center (MRC) was published Monday.
According to MRC, coverage of the election on ABC, CBS, and NBC News has been the most “lopsided in history.”
“The difference in coverage between the two candidates is far greater than in 2016 when both Trump and then-challenger Hillary Clinton received mostly negative coverage [91% negative for Trump, vs. 79% negative for Clinton,]” according to MRC analysts.
The disparity between the Trump and Harris coverage is even greater than in 2020.
During the 2020 election, “Joe Biden was treated to 66% positive coverage, vs. 92% negative for Trump,” the study reads.
MRC reported that ABC, CBS, and NBC have spent more than 200 minutes of airtime, most of it negative, harping on controversies surrounding Trump.
However, those same networks have been glossing over or, in many cases, outright ignoring controversies related to Harris.
The outlets ignored damaging stories on Harris such as plagiarism accusations and allegations of anti-women violence and toxic behavior against her husband, Doug Emhoff.
“Instead, Harris’ coverage has been larded with enthusiastic quotes from pro-Harris voters, creating a positive ‘vibe’ for the Democrat even as network reporters criticize Trump themselves,” MRC writes.
Analysts reviewed more than 600 segments about the presidential race that aired on ABC, CBS, or NBC.
The analysis started from the coverage beginning on the day President Biden suspended his candidacy in late July, through October 25.
The MRC analysts found that, after weeks of glowing coverage for Harris as the Democrat nominee, the three networks seemingly changed their tone following the debate between Harris and Trump in September.
“The networks shifted attention away from Harris, spending significantly more airtime targeting Trump,” the report reads.
“From the date Harris entered the race on July 21 through September 10, she received 353 minutes of network evening news coverage, virtually identical to the 355 minutes given Trump during the same period,” the study found.
“Since then, however, TV has focused nearly twice as much attention on Trump as Harris: 398 minutes for the former President, compared to just 230 minutes for the vice president”
“The additional airtime for Trump was hardly meant as a gift. Instead, it reflected the networks’ intensive focus on Trump controversies, providing opportunities for negative news coverage,” according to MRC.
Roughly 31% of the 753 minutes of evening news spent on Trump since July 21 spotlighted his personal controversies, the study found.
“This compares to barely five percent of Harris’s airtime [28 minutes, out of a total 583 minutes of coverage] spent on similar topics.
The networks repeatedly cited January 6 and Trump’s concerns that the 2020 election was rigged.
During these reports, the networks were repeatedly labeling Trump as a “danger to democracy,” MRC reported.
Comparatively, “Harris faced no such onslaught,” MRC analysts found.
“Over fourteen weeks, evening news viewers heard a scant 5 minutes, 22 seconds of GOP criticisms that she’s too liberal, barely one-sixth the airtime spent on the claim Trump is a ‘fascist.’
“None of this coverage included any criticisms of Harris from either network reporters or nonpartisan sources.”
“Add it all up, and the media coverage of the past three months is more lopsided than that of any presidential election in the modern media age,” the report notes.
“So if Donald Trump regains the White House next week, the media’s campaign against him will have accomplished nothing, except the further erosion of their own reputations.”
The study comes shortly after a Gallup study revealed that Americans’ trust in the corporate media remains both historically and consistently low.
Only 31% of those polled expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of faith in the media to report news properly.
Gallup Senior Editor Megan Brenan wrote:
“For the third consecutive year, more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount.
“Another 33% of Americans express ‘not very much’ confidence.”
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