According to Brent Bozell, the journalistic double standard on Donald Trump vs. the fawning over Hillary Clinton is “stunning.” The Media Research Center president appeared on Fox News and the Fox Business Channel, Wednesday, and marveled at the bias: “In 30 years of tabulating this empirically, we've never seen anything like it.”
Bozell cited a new MRC study finding that 91 percent of Trump’s coverage since the conventions has been hostile. The media watchdog president declared to Neil Cavuto: “It doesn't matter where you fall in this campaign or ideology. You simply cannot have this kind of double standard and call it fair, balanced, objective journalism.”
Bozell explained the MRC’s numbers:
BRENT BOZELL: You have got 40 percent more coverage of Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Two and a half times more air times be given controversies, two and a half times about Trump over her. 91 percent negative coverage of Donald Trump. Now, she has gotten negative coverage as well. But it's buried under an avalanche of coverage that Donald Trump is getting.
Later, appearing of Fox Business Channel’s After the Bell, the MRC president concluded:
BOZELL: In 30 years of tabulating this empirically, we've never seen anything like it.... If look at coverage going back to the July 29th, to when the conventions ended to October 20th, it has been avalanche.... You can say all day long he’s brought a lot of these things on himself. You can say all day long there have been real controversies. I’ll give you that. But 91 percent negative? That’s an agenda.
A transcript of the Your World With Neil Cavuto segment is below:
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Your World With Neil Cavuto
10/26/16
4:05
NEIL CAVUTO: The Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell says at least that is a physical representation of the trashing Donald Trump has been receiving. Look in the media, it is even worse. Brent, when you look at the kind of hit pieces that have come up on Donald Trump, whether you're for that sort of thing or not, it is imbalanced here. We don't see anything of that magnitude with stories on Hillary Clinton, do we?
RICH NOYES: No question about it. My colleague Rich Noyes did a huge study since the convention and the numbers speak for themselves. You have got 40 percent more coverage of Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Two and a half times more air times be given controversies, two and a half times about Trump over her. 91 percent negative coverage of Donald Trump. Now, she has gotten negative coverage as well. But it’s buried under an avalanche of coverage that Donald Trump is getting. And meanwhile, real stories revolving around Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration are being forgotten.
NEIL CAVUTO: You know what is kind of weird, when I talk to other journalists about this, I don’t think they enter this — wake up in the morning thinking, “How can I stick it to Donald Trump?” I like to think it's not the case. So, it isn't so much an agenda as much as it is a sort of disconnect that a lot of them have that go after Donald Trump on this stuff because it's easier to tell the story because you can use his words and yet I'm told that he — the WikiLeaks stuff, that gets kind of convoluted. And I went back — what is so convoluted about explaining pay to pay? Those are basic kind of concepts that don't take a lot of set up and detail to get into. But, nevertheless, It is what it is.
BRENT BOZELL: Well, you know, a couple of points on that. I’m going to respectfully disagree with you. I used to say that about the media. They don't get up and have breakfast and say, “How can we screw conservatives?” Well, in fact, yes, they do. One of the things that we are learning is WikiLeaks —
CAVUTO: I was trying to be kind. I was trying to be kind.
BOZELL: But we have learned that there are at least now, that we have tabulated, at least a dozen instances now where we have discovered that what the media working with the Clinton campaign in doing their stories, including reporters who submit their stories to the Clinton campaign for vetting before publishing them. It is just an extraordinary development that we found. Secondly, where things like Benghazi are concerned, again, it’s stunning to me. I'm not trying to diminish these accusations from women and Donald Trump. However put things in their proper context in this campaign. What is more important? That or a Clinton Foundation pay-to-play or blast going on what’s going on in Benghazi with the Benghazi investigation? With the e-mails and her servers. Put all of those things together and combined they are less than Donald Trump and accusations from women from 15 to 20 years ago. It is a stunning development for me.
CAVUTO: But it is interesting to me that the media didn’t waste a nano-second getting all of these women who made these charges on the air fast. Fine. Fine. But when it came to the WikiLeaks stuff, they wanted , you know, vetted and vetted again and checked and rechecked. The same zeal certainly didn't apply to getting Donald Trump’s taxes out when they did. They didn't care about the source or how they got out. They just pounced on it.
BOZELL: Sure.
CAVUTO: So, a bit of a double standard.
BOZELL: And now, Neil, yeah, Neil, let's compare the way that they are covering Donald Trump and women and the way they covered Bill Clinton and women. Let's go back to Monica Lewinsky. Let’s go back to the Juanita Broaddrick non-rape story in the 1990s. Back then, the attitude of the media was “That's ancient history, move on. Move on. That's ancient history it's not verified. It’s one person’s word.” They didn’t do stories. “Move on. Move on. Move on.” That's where we got the term Moveon.org was from the media promoting the idea and projecting the idea that this was not important. Look what they are doing with Donald Trump. They are doing the exact opposite. Now, it doesn’t matter where you fall in this campaign or ideology. You simply cannot have this kind of double standard and call it fair, balanced, objective journalism.
CAVUTO: And the numbers bear it out. It’s not even close. I mean, if you want to go after Donald, fine. But it’s not even close. Brent, thank you very much, my friend Brent Bozell.
