NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal program on Monday morning to discuss the coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, which offered an opportunity to share the MRC numbers on evening news coverage so far. See the larger study by Rich Noyes and Mike Ciandella here.
Graham said coverage of Hillary Clinton has been negative, but he was amazed at her refusal to grant interviews or appear on Sunday newsmaker shows.
GRETA WODELE BRAWNER: How is the media covering Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic nomination process, versus the Republican candidates and that nomination process.
TIM GRAHAM: Well, Hillary Clinton, on the evening news, as we’ve been measuring it, has the most amount of coverage. She has about 190 minutes of coverage [to be precise, it's 193 minutes]. Trump is coming in second with 116.
So she’s dominating the Democratic race, all of the polls which show you that. If you look at a candidate who has gotten the most positive coverage, if not the most amount of coverage, that would be Bernie Sanders. I mean, his coverage has been remarkably positive, a lot of commentary about the size of his crowds, and his appeal.
The coverage of Mrs. Clinton has been pretty negative, a lot of that focused on her e-mails. But I think what is remarkable to us, as media analysts, is how she has decided to run this campaign, saying “I’m not granting interviews, I’m not doing Sunday shows like Donald Trump. I’m just gonna run and not really do much press at all. Take a couple of local press questions, maybe.” It’s just amazing to me that she can get away with that. And that, to me, I start to wonder if the press has any self-respect. They didn’t look like they had a lot of respect when they were roped in on the street.
BRAWNER: She responds on Twitter to whatever the debate is happening, whether it’s in Washington, or outside of Washington, she will come to Twitter to respond that way. What do you make of candidates using that rather than using the mainstream media?
GRAHAM: Well, that can be the most canned, consultant-driven material. It is not the same as the back-and-forth with a journalist, you know. She’s running a very canned campaign. It’s exactly what she did in 2007, ran a canned campaign. I mean, they were doing more media back then than she is doing now.
One of the things she did back then was ABC had these 45-minute town hall meetings with three of the Democratic candidates – with Obama, with John Edwards, with Hillary Clinton – Republicans never get that kind of air time, and they’re certainly not going to get it with 17 candidates.
The entire segment can be seen at CSPAN.org.
