After the morning news casts showed substantially more interest in the Iranian protests on Tuesday morning than they had shown over the holiday weekend, by Wednesday morning coverage of Iran had mostly collapsed, leaving FNC's Fox and Friends giving substantially more attention to the story than all the news shows from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC in the same time slot combined -- including more than six times as much as CNN's New Day.
Fox and Friends managed to spend about 19 and a half minutes on Iran across its three hours of broadcast between 6 and 9:00 a.m. ET. New Day, by contrast, in the same time slot, only gave Iran a total of just over three minutes - mostly within the last 10 minutes of the three-hour show -- as the Cable News Network was preoccupied with President Donald Trump using Twitter to taunt North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un about the size of his nuclear "button."
CNN spent more about 47 minutes on North Korea, much of it about Trump's tweet, but also partly about North Korea reaching out to South Korea for talks. Fox and Friends spent almost 11 minutes on North Korea, which made it closer to being balanced with its Iran coverage of more than 19 minutes.
NBC's Today show gave Iran a full report of two minutes and 39 seconds within it's first two hours shortly after 7:00 a.m. ET, while CBS This Morning only gave it 28 seconds, and ABC's Good Morning America completely omitted the story.
MSNBC's three-hour Morning Joe show spent almost four minutes on Iran in a segment during its second hour just past 7:00 a.m. ET. Notably, MSNBC's First Look show -- which airs early between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. ET and more closely resembles a newscast -- managed to spend more than 10 minutes on Iran in just one hour.
CNN's Early Start show -- which airs between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. and resembles a normal newscast more than CNN's New Day -- managed to spend a total of more than 10 minutes on Iran spread across its two hours, but less visible that CNN's flagship New Day show.
While CNN's New Day spent only three minutes on Iran, the show did find eight minutes for a segment to discuss whether Trump really believes there is a "deep state" in the government trying to undermine him, eight minutes for the Russia probe, more than four minutes with Maggie Habermann discussing what Trump's tweets suggest about his mental health, and almost four minutes discussing Trump trying to take credit for fewer airline deaths in a tweet.
On Monday -- while most morning newscasts were mostly pre-recorded -- Fox and Friends gave Iran five times more coverage than ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN combined, before attention to Iran on all networks spiked on Tuesday morning.
Below is a transcript of how Fox and Friends began discussing Iran near the beginning of the show at 6:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday, January 3:
BRIAN KILMEAD: Fascinating developments in about 40 cities throughout Iran, as we see some unrest happening. And what's the main difference between the 2009 uprising and the 2017? According to Iranian experts, this starts almost all young -- this starts almost all rural.
And believe it or not, it was the leak of a document that spurred this unrest -- that showed the top secret budget proposed by their President Rouhani about how much of their money was going to terrorism -- Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Yemen, Syria, Iraq -- that got the population outraged where most of the young under 25 are unemployed -- four out of 10 don't even have a job.
STEVE DOOCY: Absolutely. Look, the sanctions against Iran are working as well, and look at what is going on over there, and they don't like the President even though he -- they kind of like him, don't like him really -- but they really hate the Ayatollah. Now, keep in mind, one of the things Sarah Huckabee Sanders said yesterday is the people of Iran must be given basic human rights.
Also, Iran's got to stop being a state sponsor of terror. And there was a guest on by the name of Robert Bartlett -- a retired staff sergeant -- he was injured by an Iranian bomb, and what he depicts is -- over the last number of years -- how many people, United States citizens had been injured by Iran.
After a clip of Staff Sergeant Robert Bartlett recalling his experience of injury because of Iranian support for terrorists, Kilmeade made the argument that Trump should get European countries to pledge to enact sanctions against Iran if the authoritarian government cracks down on its citizens who are protesting.
