Speaking with host J.D. Hayworth on Wednesday’s Newsmax Prime, Media Research Center Research Director Rich Noyes discussed the findings of the latest MRC study that showed the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC gave Donald Trump huge scores of coverage thus far in the 2016 campaign while giving significantly less time to any of the other GOP candidates.
Prior to Trump’s entrance into the race, Noyes explained to Hayworth that “their evening newscasts” which are “still seen by over 25 million people on an average week, didn’t really care about the GOP race” but quickly changed their tune when Trump launched his campaign.
Noyes then shed further light on how the networks have used Trump “to stoke interest in this race and he is getting far more attention than any of the other Republican candidates that were doing this all year.” Specifically, Noyes noted the 116 minutes given to Trump and how it works out to being “one and a half times that” of second-place candidate Jeb Bush (at 72 minutes).
Reacting to the scant 73 seconds the network evening newscasts have given from January to July 2015 to Dr. Ben Carson, Hayworth exclaimed: “For crying out loud, it’s really something.”
When he asked Noyes if the media frenzy surrounding Trump has contributed to his rise in the polls, the MRC research director responded:
Oh, I think unquestionably it is, but I think if you look at the coverage, the coverage on these networks was meant to be very condemning of Trump. I mean, they were calling him names. It was all about these controversial statements he made and businesses were pulling out of deals. The coverage didn’t pick up on June 16. It picked up in late June when Univision dropped the Miss Universe pageant, but all this negative coverage has actually built Trump up.
Noyes also added that the liberal media’s criticism of Trump “helps him with this base” of GOP primary voters considering the fact that “the media have worse reputation than [the people] they call names.”
