STUDY: 150 TIMES More Negative News on Trump than Biden

ph1l · Aug 17, 2020

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/n...tudy-150-times-more-negative-news-trump-biden

STUDY: 150 TIMES More Negative News on Trump than Biden
Rich Noyes
August 17th, 2020 8:15 AM
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As the pandemic grinds on, the Big Three broadcast evening newscasts are among the highest rated programs on television today — and that means millions of viewers are witnessing the most biased presidential campaign coverage in modern media history.

I’ve been studying the news media and elections for more than 35 years. Trust me — there’s never been anything like it.

A new MRC analysis of all evening news coverage of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in June and July found these networks chose to aim most of their attention and nearly all of their negative coverage on Trump, so Biden escaped any scrutiny of his left-wing policy positions, past job performance or character.

From June 1 through July 31, the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts focused 512 minutes of airtime on the President, or nine times more than the 58 minutes allotted to Biden. (This excludes coverage of the Trump administration in general when not associated with the President himself.) This is an even wider gap than the spring, when Trump received seven times more coverage than Biden (523 minutes vs. 75 minutes).

The extra airtime devoted to Trump consisted almost entirely of anchors and reporters criticizing the President. During these two months, our analysts documented 668 evaluative statements about the President, 95 percent of which (634) were negative, vs. a mere five percent (34) that were positive. Using the same methodology (fully described at the end of this article), we found very few evaluative statements about Joe Biden — just a dozen, two-thirds of which (67%) were positive.

Do the math, and viewers heard 150 TIMES more negative comments about Trump than Biden. That’s not news reporting — that’s a negative advertising campaign in action.

If you consider the evening newscasts a reliable gauge of the liberal media at large (cable news, big newspapers, etc.), it means Biden has enjoyed an army of so-called journalists conducting a massive negative information campaign against his opponent, while he is sheltered from any scrutiny. Controversies from the spring, such as allegations from former staffer Tara Reade that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, completely disappeared from his evening news coverage in June and July.

Biden’s various policy proposals — which by his own admission would take his administration farther to the Left than the very liberal Obama administration — received a meager 5 minutes, 22 seconds of airtime, not one second of which included any critical analysis from any journalist.

There were no labels of Biden as “progressive,” “left-wing,” or even “liberal” on any of these newscasts, either; reporters also neglected to tell viewers how much the Democrat would raise taxes if he were elected (spoiler: more than $4 trillion).

Biden’s plan for $700 billion more federal spending (what he called “investments”), announced July 9, received a scant 40 seconds of evening news airtime (25 seconds on ABC, 15 seconds on CBS, nothing on NBC). When he outlined his massively expensive ($2 trillion) plan to combat climate change on July 14, it received six seconds, all of it on CBS.

If the networks weren’t scrutinizing Biden’s policies or his character, what accounted for his 58 minutes of airtime? Conveniently for the candidate, a plurality of it (23.5 minutes, or 40%) consisted of showcasing his near-daily criticisms of Trump. Conversely, only 88 seconds of Trump’s 512 minutes of airtime consisted of relaying his criticisms of Biden (a minuscule 0.25%).

Another 14 percent of Biden’s coverage (roughly eight minutes) consisted of reporters assessing where Biden stood in the race vs. Trump. These so-called “horse race” judgments — assessments of each candidates standing or prospects in the campaign — are not included in our good press/bad press score, but those comments showed a wide tilt as well: We tallied 51 such statements about the Biden campaign, 96% of which (49) were positive; for Trump, 75 of 80 horse race judgments were negative (94%).

No presidential candidate — not even Barack Obama in 2008 — has ever been on the receiving end of such a wide array of media favors. (While Obama received highly positive coverage, there was no massive media effort to destroy his GOP opponent, Senator John McCain.) While the former Vice President sits snugly in his basement before his nomination later this week, the entire liberal “news” media complex have spent the summer on the attack against his opponent, even as they refuse to report anything negative about Biden himself.

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Methodology: For this report, MRC analysts reviewed every mention of President Trump and former Vice President Biden from June 1 through July 31, including weekends, on ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News. To determine the spin of news coverage, our analysts tallied all explicitly evaluative statements about Trump or Biden from either reporters, anchors or non-partisan sources such as experts or voters. Evaluations from partisan sources, as well as neutral statements, were not included.

As we did in 2016, we also separated personal evaluations of each candidate from statements about their prospects in the campaign horse race (i.e., standings in the polls, chances to win, etc.). While such comments can have an effect on voters (creating a bandwagon effect for those seen as winning, or demoralizing the supports of those portrayed as losing), they are not “good press” or “bad press” as understood by media scholars as far back as Michael Robinson’s groundbreaking research on the 1980 presidential campaign.
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userque · Aug 17, 2020

LOL ... yeah, it absolutely is obvious why there's more negative news on an incumbent doing a multitude of negative things.

But please, continue programming your cult to believing Trump is an honest angel. They'll need all the programming they can get; while most others find the cult sad and hilarious at the same time.

gaussian · Aug 17, 2020

userque said:
But please, continue programming your cult to believing Trump is an honest angel. They'll need all the programming they can get; while most others find the cult sad and hilarious at the same time.
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Ah yes, I too remember 2016.

ph1l · Aug 17, 2020

userque said:
LOL ... yeah, it absolutely is obvious why there's more negative news on an incumbent doing a multitude of negative things.

But please, continue programming your cult to believing Trump is an honest angel. They'll need all the programming they can get; while most others find the cult sad and hilarious at the same time.
More...

Yes Trump is no angel, but the article about bias from ABC, CBS and NBC network news. Many people seem to overlook this. See also
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias

What Is Confirmation Bias?
People are prone to believe what they want to believe.
Posted Apr 23, 2015

Imagine that you have tried to reach a friend with whom you have an ambivalent relationship by phone or email, leaving messages, yet receiving no call in return. In a situation like this, it is easy to jump to conclusions in an intuitive manner that your friend wants to avoid you. The danger, of course, is that you leave this belief unchecked and start to act as though it were true.

Confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. When people would like a certain idea or concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views or prejudices one would like to be true.

Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it. Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions. For example, some people will have a very strong inclination to dismiss any claims that marijuana may cause harm as nothing more than old-fashioned reefer madness. Some social conservatives will downplay any evidence that marijuana does not cause harm.

Confirmation bias can also be found in anxious individuals, who view the world as dangerous. For example, a person with low self-esteem is highly sensitive to being ignored by other people, and they constantly monitor for signs that people might not like them. Thus, if you are worried that someone is annoyed with you, you are biased toward all the negative information about how that person acts toward you. You interpret neutral behavior as indicative of something negative.

Wishful thinking is a form of self-deception, such as false optimism. For example, we often deceive ourselves, such as stating: just this one; it’s not that fattening; I’ll stop smoking tomorrow. Or when someone is “under the influence” he feels confident that he can drive safely even after three or more drinks.

Self-deception can be like a drug, numbing you from harsh reality or turning a blind eye to the tough matter of gathering evidence and thinking. As Voltaire commented long ago, “Illusion is the first of all pleasure.” In some cases, self-deception is good for us. For example, when dealing with certain illnesses, positive thinking may actually be beneficial for diseases such as cancer, but not diabetes or ulcers. There is limited evidence that believing that you will recover helps reduce your level of stress hormones, giving the immune system and modern medicine a better chance to do their work.

In sum, people are prone to believe what they want to believe. Seeking to confirm our beliefs comes naturally, while it feels strong and counterintuitive to look for evidence that contradicts our beliefs. This explains why opinions survive and spread. Disconfirming instances are far more powerful in establishing the truth. Disconfirmation would require looking for evidence to disprove it.

The take-home lesson here is to set your hypothesis and look for instances to prove that you are wrong. This is perhaps a true definition of self-confidence: the ability to look at the world without the need to look for instances that please your ego.

For group decision-making, it is crucial to obtain information from each member in a way that they are independent. For example, as part of a police procedure to derive the most reliable information from multiple witnesses to a crime, witnesses are not allowed to discuss it prior to giving their testimony. The goal is to prevent unbiased witnesses from influencing each other. It is known that Abraham Lincoln intentionally filled his cabinet with rival politicians who had extremely different ideologies. When making decisions, Lincoln always encouraged vigorous debate and discussion.
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Cuddles · Aug 17, 2020

remind me again of the Trump lies to Biden lies ratio?

gaussian · Aug 18, 2020

Here4money said:
Biden lies
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Imagine being so desperate for a promotion at ShareBlue you think a lie counter means anything.

FWIW if we count every time Biden has flubbed as a lie by omission we may have to start speaking in terms of astronomical units.

Cuddles · Aug 18, 2020

gaussian said:
Imagine being so desperate for a promotion at ShareBlue you think a lie counter means anything.

FWIW if we count every time Biden has flubbed as a lie by omission we may have to start speaking in terms of astronomical units.
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sorry, that weak spin won't get you a job at Breitbart

exGOPer · Aug 18, 2020

userque said:
View attachment 237528

LOL ... yeah, it absolutely is obvious why there's more negative news on an incumbent doing a multitude of negative things.

But please, continue programming your cult to believing Trump is an honest angel. They'll need all the programming they can get; while most others find the cult sad and hilarious at the same time.
More...

Cons: Biden doesn't do anything and stays in the basement

Also Cons: Why won't Biden get more or equal negative news when the incumbent is presiding over the worst economy and health crisis in centuries.

Cons are just dumb, never met a smart one in real or virtual world.

derektrader · Aug 18, 2020

We all know this. The media wants a weak liberal in the white house.

Spike Trader · Aug 18, 2020

Here is some positive news , Trump promises to pardon someone 'very , very important' later this week . It comes with his blessing along with the stupid sign.......
people are speculating if that person could be Michael Cohen.
That's all he ever does . . . . sign executive orders and pardons crooks.

Trump draws ridicule for promise to pardon someone ‘very, very important’ later this week