The Republican and Democratic conventions are over, and it’s clear which party was the favorite of taxpayer-supported PBS in their nightly three hours of live coverage in prime time. Not even the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump quelled the overwhelming negativity with which the PBS panel greeted the Republican Party Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee in July.
Yet a month later, Vice-President Kamala Harris and a familiar crew of Democratic faces were greeted rapturously by the same network at the Democratic Party Convention (DNC) in Chicago.
Key Findings:
- Hostility for Republicans, Support for Democrats: PBS treated the RNC to 72% negative and 28% positive commentary. The DNC received far friendlier reception: 12% negative, 88% positive.
- Question Tone for Republicans vs Democrats: 89% negative for Republican guests vs. 61% positive for Democratic guests; 68% negative for Republican delegates vs. 60% positive for Democratic delegates.
- Capehart vs Brooks? Hardly: Washington Post columnist Capehart’s evaluation of the RNC was 10:1 negative, but “conservative” New York Times columnist David Brooks’ ratio was also negative, 2:1.
- The Name That Shall Not Be Used: “Illegal.”
PBS brought its core D.C.-based news team as its booth panel for both conventions: News Hour co-anchors Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, political analysts David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, along with senior correspondent Judy Woodruff. Congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins reported from the RNC floor, White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez hit the floor for the DNC.
■ Negativity Toward Republicans, Support for Democrats: Any residual sympathy for Donald Trump after his near-assassination quickly dispersed in clouds of ideological hostility, as PBS accused the Republican gathering of condoning racial hostility and platforming “white supremacy” and sexism, while there was plenty of whining (largely from Capehart) about the lack of promised “unity.” In contrast, the Democratic conclave was an emotionally uplifting festival that made everyone “feel seen.” Those dueling attitudes showed up starkly in our study numbers. If anything, the numbers understate the hostility with which Republicans were treated compared with Democrats.
The 191 minutes of PBS commentary from the RNC (out of 14 hours and 3 minutes of total coverage), including commentary from all the booth panelists, broke down as 38% negative, 15% positive, and 47% neutral, meaning the opinionated comments from the RNC broke down as 72% negative and 28% positive.
By contrast, the 176 minutes of PBS commentary from the DNC (out of 15 hours and 18 minutes of total coverage), including commentary from all the booth panelists, was 8% negative, 60% positive, and 32% neutral. The opinionated comments from the DNC: 12% negative and 88% positive.
Analysis of interviews with RNC and DNC studio guests and delegates were not included in these commentary tallies, which were calculated separately.
■ RNC CONVENTION COVERAGE: Examples of negative Republican coverage included accusations of racism and white supremacy from the booth.
On Night One co-anchor Amna Nawaz spouted: “And Tucker Carlson is speaking tonight, ousted from Fox News, he’s been described as having the most racist show on cable news in history. He’s echoed white supremacist language, praises authoritarian leaders, David[Brooks] -- What message does it send, that Tucker Carlson is given a prime time speaking slot on the final night of the Republican National Convention?”
Later, her slightly flustered-sounding co-anchor Geoff Bennett went on a rant disguised as a question to liberal panelist Jonathan Capehart: “That was Florida Republican Congressman Byron Donalds addressing the RNC crowd here, the crowd of delegates. Jonathan Capehart, a question about this similar refrain we’ve heard from black conservatives tonight and of course we've heard it before, whether it's Tim Scott, Byron Donalds, Ben Carson, Mark Robinson, Winsome Sears, the Virginia lieutenant governor, there always seems to be a bootstraps story that is central to the appeal they're making to largely white Republican audiences. I don't even have a well-articulated question. What's up with that? What is that about?”
Nawaz took another bite out of “white supremacism” on Night Two: "We have seen though, we should note, Republican rhetoric veer into outright racism, echoing some white supremacist notions as well.”
Rare moments of genuine positivity occurred during the touching Gold Star family segments on Night Three. Woodruff admitted “I have to say the party, the RNC, has struck some pretty powerful chords tonight, between the Gold Star mother and father, and -- not a dry eye in the house.”
■ DNC CONVENTION COVERAGE: PBS aired more speeches and videos from the arena during the DNC then it had for the RNC, and made sure to air the Night Four speeches of Democrats running for the U.S. Senate against Republicans: Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), running against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), running against Arizona Republican Kari Lake for the seat being vacated by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). The network also basked in the glow of the star-powered delegate roll call.
There were too many examples of positive coverage from the Democratic convention to document, but here’s a small sample:
On Night One, co-anchor Geoff Bennett praised left-wing "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying that “her elevation and evolution I think has been so striking because she has found a way to blend populism and pragmatism and blend protest and power, and she got one of the most raucous receptions when she took the stage tonight.”
Laura Barron-Lopez opened PBS’s Night Two coverage with a pro-Democratic trope (“joy”) already becoming tedious: “[Delegates] really think that Kamala Harris should embrace who she is and one of her signature personality traits is that she often likes to laugh and bring joy to what she's doing and that's something that a lot of delegates have talked to me about tonight.”
That same night Amna Nawaz boasted: “We know we're hearing a lot of this messaging around the joyful warrior that are Harris and Walz, which is really a stark contrast to what we saw on the Republican side.”
The therapeutic, identity-obsessed “vibes” about “feeling seen” dominated Night Four coverage. Nawaz asked White House correspondent Barron-Lopez, on the convention floor: “Laura, we know we’re gonna hear about the history being made. Have you been able to talk to anyone on the floor about this moment this moment in which a black woman for the first time will accept a major party’s nomination for president?”
Barron-Lopez responded: “….A lot of her story makes many of the Democrats here tonight feel as though they’re being seen, sometimes for the first time.”
The negative statements from PBS out of Chicago were rather mild. Anchor Geoff Bennett on Night Two wondered about the limits of Harris’s ambitious spending plans: “President Biden as part of his social spending plan spent trillions of dollars. You can argue the merits of whether or not those policies were necessary, but where does Kamala Harris go after that? How do you spend trillions more without making inflation worse, just as Democrats are trying to get a handle on it?”
■ PBS QUESTIONS TO GUESTS: PBS anchors in Milwaukee peppered the nine guests who entered the PBS booth over the four-nights of the Republican convention with hostile questions: Of 83 total questions, 34 were negative and only 4 positive (45 were neutral), a negative/positive breakdown of 89% negative, 11% positive.
The coverage got off to an awkward start within the first five minutes on Night One, during an interview with “host” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who’d just delivered an early speech to the convention delegates. Bennett challenged Johnson on the ability of Trump to change the tone after his near-assassination, attacking Trump with three accusations, one ridiculous, one false.
Bennett: “What responsibility do you think Donald Trump has himself to turn down the temperature? Because he in the past, he’s called his political enemies ‘vermin,’ he’s called some undocumented immigrants ‘animals,’ he’s said there’ll be a ‘bloodbath’ if he’s not elected in November.” Bennett was repeating the same ridiculous liberal whoppers he told back on the News Hour in March 2024.
Nawaz complained to Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) on Night Two about the “incredibly incendiary remarks being made” in convention speeches. “If you believe that that kind of rhetoric can fuel actual real-world violence as we’ve seen in the past what’s your message to your fellow Republicans about their language?”
Positive questions to Republican guests were few. Bennett asked Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) a mild one on Night Two: “How do Hispanic voters view this issue of immigration? Because the polls have shown that increasingly Latino or Hispanic voters want to see border control and they rank it as a top issue.”
In contrast, PBS’s questions to their 11 interviewees at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago were easier: Of 72 total questions, 12 were negative, while 19 were positive (41 were neutral) for a negative/positive breakdown of 39% negative, 61% positive.
Bennett asked Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison about vice presidential nominee Tim Walz on Night Two: “You both were elected to Congress in 2006, is that right? Known him for almost 20 years. Give us a sense of what informs and inspires his approach to public service.”
Before Harris’s acceptance speech on Night Four, Bennett praised Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA), former head of the pro-abortion Democratic fundraising group EMILY’s List, with a gushy question: “You know, it strikes me, you have the experience of fighting for change from the outside as an advocate-activist and from the inside as a U.S. senator. Which approach is more effective?”
Even some negative questions to guests at the DNC reflected not Republican concerns, but those of the Democratic hard-left that favors Hamas.
Nawaz asked Keith Ellison, who talked of having a dialogue with the uncommitted delegates that align with Hamas over Israel, on Night Two: “Do you think that conversation is enough, though? Because dozens of them have signed basically a petition saying they want an arms embargo. They don’t want messaging, they want policy change. What's your take on that?”
■ PBS QUESTIONS TO DELEGATES: Congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins’ questions to Republican delegates were surprisingly hostile. Of 63 total questions to delegates from 11 states, 19 were negative, and 9 were positive (35 were neutral) for a negative/positive breakdown of 68% negative, 32% positive. Some examples:
Question to Idaho delegate Bryan Smith (Night One): “Why do you think President Trump can actually change prices at a grocery store or gas station?”
Question to delegate (and lawyer) Brent Smith of Oregon (Night Two): “Your nominee is convicted of white-collar crime, 34 felony counts in New York, Donald Trump. You are someone who is sworn to uphold, prosecute, investigate it. I have to ask, I know it’s a difficult question, but honestly, how do you see someone who’s been convicted of breaking the law?….Do you ask yourself if you would feel differently if he was a Democrat?”
Desjardins unfurled a long question to Florida delegate Jovante Teague on Night Four about Trump allegedly prosecuting his political enemies in a second term. “He sometimes says that he thinks he is the law, meaning he would tell the Department of justice if he wanted to, potentially to prosecute political opponents.” There was no sense of shame that Democrats, including Biden's DOJ, have prosecuted their opponent Donald Trump relentlessly.
By contrast, Democratic National Convention floor reporter Laura Barron-Lopez went far easier on her eight interviewees: Of 26 total questions, only 4 were negative and 6 were positive (16 were neutral), for a negative/positive breakdown of 40% negative, 60% positive.
On Night One, Barron-Lopez asked Michigan delegate Alec Hughes: “Are any of the young people that are signing up, have they told you if this is the first time they’re really getting involved? Were they maybe not going to vote at first and now they’re deciding they are going to vote?”
On the negative side, Barron-Lopez raised the left-wing challenge to Harris from the state’s pro-Hamas contingent with Michigan delegate Hughes: “….some of them are warning that they think that Harris still hasn’t done enough to win their vote. What are you hearing from people your age about the Israel-Hamas war and the issues there and what they want to hear from Harris?”
She set up abortion activist Mini Timmaraju, of the pro-abortion group Reproductive Freedom for All, on Night Two: “Are there any voters that you’ve been surprised that have come and spoken Reproductive Freedom for All and said that this is the issue that changed their minds, voters that people wouldn't necessarily consider abortion rights or reproductive rights being their top issue?”
While Desjardins interviewed actual Republican delegates for her 11 interviews at the RNC, Barron-Lopez dedicated just four of her total of eight on-camera interviews to Democratic delegates (she apparently talked to a few delegates off-camera and relayed her findings to the booth). Barron-Lopez spoke with former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, an abortion activist, a sitting Democratic congressman, and a Democratic candidate for the House.
■ AN UNBALANCED POLITICAL COUPLE: There was little political daylight between liberal Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart and “conservative” New York Times columnist David Brooks, both of whom feature on PBS News Hour’s weekly political showdown of presumably oppositional perspectives. The Brooks-Capehart pair-up perfectly encapsulated tax-funded PBS’s idea of political balance, pitting strong (and sometimes weepy) liberal Capehart versus slightly more centrist Brooks.
Both disliked the Republicans and liked the Democrats. While Capehart performed a staggering turnaround in attitude once reaching the friendlier confines of the Democratic National Convention, “conservative” Brooks found much to praise there as well.
Liberal Capehart’s evaluation ratio from the RNC was 10:1 negative comments vs. positive ones. But “Conservative” Brooks’ ratio from the RNC was also negative, by roughly 2:1.
Capehart’s DNC ratio came in at a whopping 44:1 positive, but “conservative” Brooks’ ratio from the DNC was also positive, though “only” 1.66 to 1.
RNC Coverage breakdown:
Capehart: 91% negative/9% positive
Brooks: 67% negative/33% positive
DNC Coverage breakdown:
Capehart: 2% negative/98% positive
Brooks: 38% negative/62% positive
■ STUMBLING OVER "ILLEGAL": PBS journalists had verbal tics over a word used by Republicans, one that liberal Democrats have been trying to remove from the immigration debate for years: “Illegal,” as in “illegal immigrant” or “illegal alien.”
On Night Two (“Make America Safe Again” night) Jonathan Capehart was aghast to hear the word from the Republic stage, and substituted a less harsh phrase: “Bernie Moreno, who’s running for Senate in Ohio, used the term “illegals” when talking about undocumented migrants coming over the border.”
Floor reporter Lisa Desjardins also confronted California delegate Sayrs Morris that same night. “We’ve seen this influx….The rhetoric, does it matter to you? We’ve heard the term ‘illegals’ used here, are panelists been talking about that, what do you think of that word?”
Amusingly, while criticizing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Night Two speech, veteran reporter Judy Woodruff almost said “illegal” before correcting herself mid-word to the correct term “undocumented”: “Florida, he celebrates as a place where ill--undocumented Americans are not welcome.”
■ FACT-CHECK FIZZLE? A promised fact-checking team-up with the left-leaning fact-checking site PolitiFact was relegated to a single appearance on Night Three of the RNC, with PolitiFact editor-in-chief Katie Sanders issuing three ho-hum real-time “fact checks” from PBS’s convention booth. Yet PBS didn’t air a fact-check at all during its DNC convention coverage, instead delivering an incomplete one (after Night Three, before Harris’s acceptance speech) as a segment of the PBS News Hour, also featuring Sanders as the guest.
METHODOLOGY:
MRC analysts tallied every comment made by PBS journalists during the Republican and Democratic conventions over the eight nights (29 hours and 21 minutes) of coverage: The 14 hours of PBS’s Republican National Convention coverage over four nights (July 15-18) and the 15 hours of PBS’s Democratic National Convention coverage over four nights (August 19-22). Analysts sorted the comments by journalist/analyst and evaluating them as positive, negative, or neutral toward the convention being covered. Tangential and “housekeeping” remarks were excluded from the tally.
