Well before the 2014 midterm race heated up, there was an "inescapable pattern" in the media's blackout on stories involving Obama administration scandals from Benghazi to Fast & Furious to the IRS's targeting of Tea Party non-profits. "If the accounts hurt the president and his party, the media deliberately suppress their airing before the public," Media Research Center founder and president Brent Bozell noted in a piece for National Review Online this morning.
Likewise, the pattern has held true with broadcast network coverage of the 2014 midterms, Bozell explained, pointing to an MRC study contrasting the broadcast network media's coverage of the 2006 and 2014 midterms:
It’s a sacred journalism ritual to report on an incumbent’s approval ratings, so much so that some might argue it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Certainly Team Bush would subscribe to this view. In the first eight months of 2006, during the midterm elections of President Bush’s second term, the networks discussed his falling approval ratings 52 times. On Election Day, the GOP lost control of both the House and Senate. It was an established fact, bruited by the press, that America had roundly repudiated this president and his party.
Now look at their coverage of Obama during the midterm elections of his second term.
In the first eight months of this year, ABC, NBC, and CBS have conducted at least 15 national surveys asking people to rate Obama’s job performance. There has been an endless parade of other media surveys confirming that his numbers have cratered, now hovering at the 40 percent level, making him just as unpopular as Bush was, and so toxic that even Democrats running for reelection are repeatedly denouncing him. So how many stories on ABC, NBC, and CBS? In eight months, none — only two mentions. They are censoring their own surveys.
And now, in the ultimate sign of leftist desperation, the media are censoring the elections themselves.
Again the comparison with Bush is instructive.
During those 2006 elections, there was a flurry of campaign coverage, as to be expected from news networks historically interested in covering the election process in America. From September 1 (the unofficial kick-off of the campaign season) through October 26 – almost two full months – there were 118 full reports on CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and ABC World News Tonight; there were another 86 stories that mentioned the campaign — for a total of 204 stories.
In the exact same time frame in 2014, there were 31 stories, a disparity of more than six to one.
In 2006, NBC had 79 stories on the midterm elections. This year, 15.
In 2006, CBS had 75 stories. This year, 16.
In 2006, ABC filed 50 reports. This year, not one.
To read the full piece, click here.
