Study Shows Atrocious Media Coverage Of Campaign In 2015
I’ve been meaning to mention the study put out by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy on media coverage of the political campaign during the calendar year of 2015. it certainly has some eye-opening statistics. It shows that Donald Trump received some $55 million in advertising-equivalent media coverage compared to Cruz, Bush, and Rubio whose value were all in the mid-$30 million range. Incredibly, Trump actually received POSITIVE coverage two-thirds to three-quarters of the time:
Part of the reason for this clearly imbalanced coverage is that the media spent a mere 12% of the time examining Trump’s positions and more then half of the time playing the roll of stenographer, documenting Trump’s rise in the polls and campaign appearances.
On the other hand, poor Hilary Clinton could only manage one month in the entire 2015 year where press coverage was more positive than negative. And negative coverage like that actually equates to millions in the advertising equivalent of attack ads on her campaign. But the press did manage to fulfill their role in discussing issues when it came to Hillary, more than doubling Trump and Cruz and quadrupling Bernie Sanders. They devoted 28% of their coverage to Hillary’s issue positions. Shockingly, however, the tone of 84% of the coverage on those issues was negative, while the coverage of Trump’s and Cruz’s positions were positive or neutral.
This is coverage about a candidate who could possible be one of the most prepared Presidential candidates we’ve ever had when it comes to detailed knowledge across a broad range of issues. And Bernie Sanders fared almost as badly for the opposite reason. For a guy who ran a primarily issue-oriented campaign, he managed to only attract 7% of the coverage on his issues.
All in all, these number show an almost complete failure of the media to fulfill its traditional role in civic society, which is part of the reason we ended up with Donald Trump as a nominee. And when you look at this study, it’s also not too hard to understand why Hillary, with good reason, hates the media.