A new study by the Media Research Center has revealed that of all Trump-related coverage on nightly broadcast news, more than half was related to the Russia investigation.
MRC analysts reviewed 364 Trump-related news stories on broadcast network evening shows in the five weeks since May 17.
They discovered that the networks devoted 353 minutes of airtime, or 55 percent of all Trump coverage, to the Russia investigation.
Comparatively, the networks spent 47 minutes on Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord, 29 minutes on the fight against terrorism, 17 minutes on the plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, and 12 minutes on Trump’s travel ban. Tax reform garnered just 47 seconds of coverage.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” proved to be the most obsessed with Russia-related coverage, spending 63 percent of its coverage on that topic. Meanwhile, “CBS Evening News” spent 54 percent of its coverage on Russia and “NBC Nightly News” spent 48 percent.
In addition, approximately one-third (34 percent) of the 171 Russia and Comey-related stories were based on anonymous sources, some of which turned out to be blatantly false.
Prior to former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for example, ABC News floated claims from an anonymous source that Comey would deny he told Trump that he wasn’t under investigation.
Of course, Comey’s testimony indicated he did tell Trump that he wasn’t under investigation, but ABC News did not acknowledge their mistake.
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