Saturday’s leftist “Hands Off” protests against President Trump and Elon Musk were eagerly promoted on the network news programs – although they didn’t want to tag them as leftist. It’s quite a contrast to how these same networks barely acknowledged or skipped the annual “March for Life” protest on January 24.
The most dramatic contrast came on PBS. On Saturday, PBS News Weekend rolled out seven minutes and 22 seconds of protest coverage. By contrast, in January, PBS managed 29 seconds in a larger story.
NPR aired three minutes and 54 seconds on Saturday night and Sunday morning, compared to zero seconds for pro-lifers in January. On All Things Considered, Asma Khalid was the exception to the rule, with one ideological notice: "it seems like the Left has been struggling with how to oppose Trump these last couple of months."
ABC led their newscast with 95 seconds of protest coverage on Saturday night and another three minutes and 18 seconds on Good Morning America. Take that 4:53 and compare it to just 27 seconds for the March for Life.
NBC broadcast 74 promotional seconds on Saturday night and then folded in 30 seconds on Sunday Today. Like NPR, NBC completely ignored the pro-life march.
CBS doesn’t really make the cut in this count, since we had no CBS Weekend News on Saturday night and there were 10 seconds on the protests on Sunday Morning. Back in January, most of the country saw golf coverage in January (on a Friday night). They had 21 seconds for the pro-life march on the West Coast.
PBS News Weekend anchor John Yang led off like a press release from protest organizers: "Across the country and around the world today, tens of thousands of people turned out for what organizers say has been the biggest single day of protest against President Trump and his second term policies and actions in this country. More than a thousand rallies were planned in small towns and major cities from coast to coast."
NBC’s evening story featured five angry lefty protester soundbites and hyped video clips from fourteen different protest locations, and there were no labels.
NBC's Vaughn Hillyard hyped the Saturday protests on the 'Nightly News.' He began: "Huge turnouts, from Washington, D.C. To Chicago, West Virginia, Utah, and beyond. Protests in nearly every state." They showed clips from 14 locations. #pepsquad pic.twitter.com/A769CZ3eVP
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 7, 2025
ABC weekend anchor Whit Johnson at least described the protests as “organized by Democratic activists.”
On Saturday night, ABC News led with the Left: "We begin tonight with a mass protest from coast to coast, Americans taking to the streets, voicing their frustrations with the policies of the Trump administration and Elon Musk, the world's richest man." #pepsquad pic.twitter.com/oINGDGmPYW
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 7, 2025
When the Democrats organize protests to drive some unanimously anti-Trump coverage, the networks arrive on the scene with pom-poms.
