Since the Lindsay Clancy’s widely-televised murder case ended in a mistrial, all of the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have treated Clancy to predominantly positive coverage on their flagship morning and evening newscasts. At the same time, these networks have aired unprecedentedly hostile coverage of the single juror who insisted Clancy was guilty.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
- Since September 8, broadcast networks have been four times more critical of the juror than of Clancy herself.
- Clancy received an aggregate 64.6% positive coverage across all three broadcast networks. The juror, meanwhile, was hammered with 94.7% negative coverage.
- Across 19 segments discussing the Clancy trial, not even two-thirds (12 out of 19, or 63%) clearly explained the why Clancy was even on trial.
- CBS was the only network not to cover NBC10's unprecedented hit piece about the lone “holdout juror.”
In early September, a mistrial was declared in the case of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts woman who strangled her three children to death in 2023. MRC analysts examined all subsequent coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC, from September 8 through September 13, finding a total of 19 segments discussing the case.
Astonishingly, nearly three-quarters of the evaluative statements about Clancy aired by CBS and NBC were positive (72% on CBS, 71% on NBC). Though less extreme, ABC’s framing of Clancy was still predominantly positive: 54 percent.
Most of the positive sound bites about Clancy came from post-trial interviews with jurors. All three networks frequently replayed clips in which their interviewees heaped effusive praise on the defendant:
“Everything proved that she loved her children.”
Clancy juror, NBC Nightly News, September 8.
“[The witnesses] all described her as an amazing mother... We saw that in every picture that was taken in the house on the night that this happened. Everywhere you looked, there was just love.”
Clancy juror, CBS Mornings, September 11.
Some broadcast journalists struggled to contain their own support for Clancy. On September 9, CBS Mornings co-hosts Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell conducted an overwhelmingly friendly interview with Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington. At one point, when Reddington attempted to deflect blame from his client, King helpfully interjected: “I think people don’t understand about postpartum psychosis.”
Later, O’Donnell invited Reddington to admonish the police investigation for failing to exculpate Clancy:
Last week you called it a horrible investigation, and said it was not an investigation. What do you believe was the single biggest failure?
Before we contrast this fawning coverage with the networks’ outright hostility toward the “holdout” juror, consider the sequence of events that led the networks to extensively cover him in the first place:
1. A mother was tried in a criminal court for strangling her children.
2. One juror insisted the defendant was guilty, resulting in a mistrial by hung jury.
3. With the trial concluded, broadcast networks began rewarding the defendant with overwhelmingly positive coverage.
4. Meanwhile the media immediately invited the other jurors to air their grievances about the holdout.
5. One network subsequently learned that juror’s identity and thoroughly dug into his past.
A battalion of journalists rallied around an admitted child killer, and then they aggressively investigated the only juror who had the temerity to call her guilty. That’s not journalism; that’s revenge.
Coverage of “the holdout” was unfavorable from the start, thanks to a collection of disapproving sound bites by the other jurors. But the real avalanche of negative coverage came after NBC10 Boston learned his identity. On September 11, the affiliate outlet published a piece rife with claims about his allegedly criminal past dating back to 2021. The gory details included a dismissed domestic violence charge, a claim that his mother called him “evil,” and the revelation that he was late on his rent payments.
ABC was so excited by NBC10’s ill-advised fishing expedition that they beat even NBC to the punch. On September 11, World News Tonight included a full segment dedicated the juror’s alleged malfeasance. NBC’s own nationally televised report aired the following morning on Today. CBS was the only networks to keep their hands clean of the whole situation.
NBC10’s retaliation against a juror who made the “wrong” decision, while disturbing, is actually rather on-brand for the network. During the 2021 murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, a freelance producer for MSNBC was caught chasing after a van transporting several of the jurors. He was eventually stopped and ticketed by police after blowing through a stoplight, and the judge summarily banned both NBC and MSNBC personnel from the courthouse for the remainder of the trial.
It’s no surprise, then, that NBC’s final tally was an absurd 98 percent negative coverage of the holdout juror, consisting of 50 negative statements, and just one positive. ABC was close behind with 96.5 percent negative coverage, and CBS brought up the rear with a still-terrible 80 percent.
Both the soft touch these networks showed to Clancy and their unprecedented hammering of the juror are disturbing. But almost more amazing is the fact that there even was enough coverage of a juror for us to do a comprehensive positive/negative analysis. For the numbers even to exist, let alone for them to be that bad, there has to be something terminally wrong with our nation’s broadcast news media.
