Media Research Center Research Director Rich Noyes continued his media blitz by appearing on the Thursday installment of Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs Tonight to promote his must-read study on a stunning disparity by the major broadcast networks in coverage of Donald Trump’s scandals versus Hillary Clinton’s pitfalls.
Speaking with host Lou Dobbs, the pair blasted the networks over the extraordinary statistic that 91 percent of Trump’s coverage has been negative which Noyes admitted is something he’s never witnessed even though he’s “been doing this since 1988” in monitoring the media.
Dobbs provided viewers with that key stat before welcoming on Noyes and wondering if he’s seen anything like this before to which Noyes responded:
I've been doing this since 1988 and I’ve never seen coverage like this. I mean, it’s not just the negative ratio that Trump has, it’s the intensity. I mean, he’s getting about 4 times more evaluative statements that Hillary Clinton is. He’s the topic of most of the nightly news discussion and I should explain.
Rich also provided viewers the methodology of the study: “[W]e stripped away, you know, Trump’s talking about Hillary Clinton or himself, Hillary talking about Trump or herself, we made it just reporter comments, their non-partisan experts, voters.”
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Dobbs turned to the Bill Clinton controversies and how the WikiLeaks e-mail dumps have shown concern on the part of the Hillary Clinton campaign about Bill’s past and so Noyes informed the FBN host of how much coverage Clinton’s past allegations of sexual misconduct fetched:
[T]he number one topic for this fall campaign, we looked at from conventions through the third debate, 102 minutes of air time was Donald Trump and women. There was only seven minutes of discussion of Bill Clinton and his past and most of that was about how unfair it was for Donald Trump to bring it up.
Dobbs argued that what’s come out in the WikiLeaks e-mails from John Podesta should be grounds for newspapers to retract their endorsements of Clinton but won’t even though the campaign “is so obviously corrupt, so — so impugned by fact and reality, that it is — I mean, it’s disgusting.”
“Look, this was — the Democratic nominee this year was under criminal investigation by FBI in the year she ran, that’s not the top story on the networks. You would think that be prohibitive. Her e-mail scandal got 40 minutes. You know, that is a small fraction of what Trump got for women, 20 minutes on Clinton Foundation, pay to play, two minutes on Benghazi. These are all scandals that go right to heart whether she ethically or competently function as president,” Noyes then opined.
The relevant portion of the transcript from FBN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight on October 27 can be found below.
FBN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight
October 27, 2016
7:36 p.m. EasternLOU DOBBS: A new study by Media Research Center has found that 91 percent of Donald Trump's media coverage has been negative, even hostile. Joining me now, to discuss study and more, Research Director at the Media Research Center, Rich Noyes. Good to have you here. This is like we've never seen before. I don't know if you have done a historical comparison, but I have never seen these ratios of between two candidates so disparate, so wide, and so decidedly one sided.
RICH NOYES: I've been doing this since 1988 and I’ve never seen coverage like this. I mean, it’s not just the negative ratio that Trump has, it’s the intensity. I mean, he’s getting about 4 times more evaluative statements that Hillary Clinton is. He’s the topic of most of the nightly news discussion and I should explain. For our — to calculate the spin ratio, we stripped away, you know, Trump’s talking about Hillary Clinton or himself, Hillary talking about Trump or herself, we made it just reporter comments, their non-partisan experts, voters. This is spin that newscasts are presenting and it’s 91 percent negative on Trump. He is getting much more coverage from Hillary Clinton and most of the coverage are about his controversies, not her controversies in spite of how serious her controversies are.
DOBBS: And I — you know, the idea that national media has chosen, to ignore — effectively, most of — nearly all of the allegations of Bill Clinton, even though the WikiLeaks document reveal that campaign was most concerned that he would be juxtaposed against Bill Cosby for his — for the allegations against him, but in Bill Clinton’s case there has been adjudication, there has been proof, there has been the reality of what has happened, and those women have come forward, and famously, we remember the four of them at a debate being ignored in totality by left-wing media.
NOYES: Yeah. No, we’ve — the number one topic for this fall campaign, we looked at from conventions through the third debate, 102 minutes of air time was Donald Trump and women. There was only seven minutes of discussion of Bill Clinton and his past and most of that was about how unfair it was for Donald Trump to bring it up.
DOBBS: And looking at these scandal that are revealed. What we have seen, just from WikiLeaks revealed to American public is enough for these newspapers, their editorial boards, their publishers to withdraw their — their endorsement of a campaign that is so obviously corrupt, so — so impugned by fact and reality, that it is — I mean, it’s disgusting. The smell that surrounds this whole public corruption case against the Clintons, the Clinton cartel, the Clinton campaign, the Clinton Foundation. It’s extraordinary and unprecedented.
NOYES: Look, this was — the Democratic nominee this year was under criminal investigation by FBI in the year she ran, that’s not the top story on the networks. You would think that be prohibitive. Her e-mail scandal got 40 minutes. You know, that is a small fraction of what Trump got for women, 20 minutes on Clinton Foundation, pay to play, two minutes on Benghazi. These are all scandals that go right to heart whether she ethically or competently function as president and they are pushed to the back of the line so they can talk about Trump and statements that might rub people the wrong the way or these allegations about women.
DOBBS: Two largest newspapers in this country. That is The Washington Post, and The New York Times, have exceptional honors. I’ll put it that way. Jeff Bezos, who himself is committed to destroying the candidacy, obviously, of Donald Trump. Carlos Slim, the largest single shareholder now in The New York Times. Obviously, both organizations being driven anti-Trump, anti- and most un-anti-democratic fashion if I could put it that. Rich, what in the world should American people do in response? Do you see a wake up here? Do you see an alarm? Or do you see more — and apathy and indifference?
NOYES: Well, I think, you know, every cycle it grows the number of people who do not trust the press. The press, you know, have proven themselves not to be honest brokers when it comes to covering liberals versus conservatives, Democrats vs. Republicans. This is really just the most extreme case.
DOBBS: You know, I don't like that construction, Rich. I really don’t because, I don't see deceit, deception, duplicity on the part of anyone but left wing media. I mean, this is — this is extraordinary, and their candidates held up in judgment by public opinion and obviously the voters on November 8.
NOYES: Right, and voters I think are losing trust, if they’re ever — you know, to the extent that they had it in this press, but I think those — the owners you talked about. They could not do that if they did not have rank-and-file journalists who believed that that world view as well. If they were all conservative journalists —
DOBBS: Oh, I’m not — whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not — I’m not wor — believe me. The last thing I would question is whether or not there is a shared world view and it’s globalist and it’s entirely left-wing on those two publications and most of the national media.
