A new study revealed how George Stephanopoulos wasn’t the only personality that made ABC the “100%” pro-Harris network to host Tuesday’s presidential debate.
If past is prologue then the first, and potentially only, matchup between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris had many expecting more of a three-on-one contest pitting the GOP leader against the replacement rival as well as ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis.
In support of the supposition, the Media Research Center compared the coverage of the host network with its big three competitors CBS News and NBC News to find that ABC’s “World News Tonight” had far and away the friendliest coverage of the vice president’s campaign while also being the most hostile to Trump.
A review of the 100 campaign stories aired by the Muir-hosted broadcast since Harris supplanted President Joe Biden as the nominee on July 21 until Sept. 6 marked absolutely zero negative statements about the Democratic White House hopeful.
Contrasting the 100% positive spin based off of “25 clearly positive statements,” MRC found a mere “five clearly positive comments” about Trump against 66 negative statements that amounted to a 93% negative spin.
BREAKING STUDY: @ABC‘s coverage of Kamala Harris is 100% positive, while their coverage of Donald Trump is 93% negative.
ABC is the most biased debate host. https://t.co/Vomo6zRdDa
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) September 9, 2024
To clarify their analysis, MRC explained, “Our measure of good press/bad press omits partisan comments, as well as ‘horse race’ assessments about the candidates’ poll standings and prospects. So while viewers of ABC’s World News Tonight certainly heard negative comments about Harris during these past six-and-a-half weeks, all of them were from Trump, his campaign team, or other Republicans — never from reporters or nonpartisan sources.”
“At the same time,” researcher Rich Noyes detailed, “while our spin score similarly excludes all Democratic soundbites about the Republican nominee, ABC’s reporters and anchors either jumped in to criticize Trump themselves or broadcast negative comments from non-partisan sources to impart a heavily negative spin to the former President’s coverage.”
The review of CBS’s “Evening News” and NBC’s “NBC Nightly News” found 94% and 71% positive coverage for Harris along with 77% and 86% negative coverage for Trump respectively.
Examples of ABC News’ curated coverage of the Democratic Party nominee included reporting that, unlike its competitors, “World News Tonight” had yet to air voters voicing their favor for Trump instead of Harris while also avoiding the use of terms like “liberal” and “progressive” in characterizing the White House hopeful.
“While there were few criticisms of Harris’s policies and ideology on CBS and NBC, they weren’t entirely absent,” wrote Noyes. “‘Harris is providing few details on her plans, which one nonpartisan group says will add $1.7 trillion to the deficit,’ NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez told viewers back on August 17. ‘And both Republican and Democratic economists have argued against government price controls.'”
Additionally, “World News Tonight” was said to have spent nearly four minutes in as many stories reporting about Trump’s comments about Harris’ race, and almost as much time for three stories to discuss the hoax that stemmed from the president’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery.
Unlike CBS and NBC, ABC opted not to cover reports about Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff’s first marriage ending over his having an affair with the nanny.
Muir himself was cited on the record touting the “historic” nature of Harris’ nomination, including on Aug. 22 when he said, “The final night of the Democratic National Convention, and it will be a historic one. Vice President Kamala Harris, the first black woman and Asian American set to accept a major party’s nomination for president.”
One major point in Trump’s favor according to the rules reported for the scheduled debate, the president’s campaign won a coin flip that allowed him to opt for having the last word for two-minute closing statements.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.