CNN has exhibited a fetish for the Stormy Daniels story, particularly for her Trump-smacking lawyer, Michael Avenatti. In less than two months (from March 7 to April 30), Avenatti has been a guest on CNN a total of 59 times – an average of more than once per day.
MRC analysts combed through transcripts of all of CNN’s 2018 coverage looking for references to interviews with Avenatti, and then double-checked using our video archive. Since Avenatti’s first appearance on March 7, he has been interviewed on CNN a whopping 59 times, more than one-third of which (19) were with Anderson Cooper — who, of course, interviewed Stormy Daniels on CBS’s 60 Minutes back in March.
By comparison, CNN hosted House Democrat Adam Schiff (CA) – who had been a favorite of the network – ten times during the months of March and April. That would be a generous portion of airtime for any politician, but it was barely one-sixth the exposure granted to a lawyer overwhelmingly known for representing a porn star.
Unfortunately for the Congressman, CNN’s interest in Schiff was noticeably higher before Avenatti showed up. In January and February, the Trump-bashing Democrat was interviewed a total of 17 times; in March and April, that fell to just ten times, a decline of roughly 40%.
Here’s another statistic that should put CNN’s interest in Avenatti into perspective: From March 7 to April 30, all 51 Republican Senators combined received just 34 interviews on the cable network.
Though CNN has eagerly hosted Avenatti at seemingly every opportunity, some at the network have commented on his inordinate on-air presence. On April 6, New Day stand-in host David Gregory elicited a laugh from his fellow panelists when he sarcastically referred to “rare public comments from Michael Avenatti.” And on April 30, CNN legal analyst Paul Callan characterized the lawyer’s most recent lawsuit against the President as “a publicity stunt” during yet another appearance by Avenatti on Cooper’s show.
Despite these remarks by Gregory and Callan, it remains to be seen whether CNN will ratchet back the absurd amount of coverage they have given Avenatti. But if their current pace of 1.09 interviews per day (including weekends) continues for the rest of the year, the network will have bombarded viewers with a total of 327 Avenatti appearances for all of 2018.
Stay tuned.
