Thursday, January 30, 2020

Evening News Spin: 100% Negative on Trump Defense, 95% Positive Dems

A Media Research Center study of broadcast evening news coverage of the opening arguments of both sides, found ABC, CBS, and NBC did not live up to the standard they demanded of Republicans.

ABC's World News Tonight had eight positive comments, CBS Evening News had five, and NBC Nightly News seven.

After the manuscript of former National Security Advisor John Bolton was leaked, Holt announced that the book "Contradicts his defense." Moments later, NBC chief White House correspondent Hallie Jackson seemed to poke at how Trump's lawyers were addressing senators by not "The elephant in the room." On day one on the Democratic arguments, they roundly praised how prosecutors were using the words of the President's defenders against him.

CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell echoed: "House managers laid out their case to remove Mr. Trump from office, at times using his own words against him." NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt opened the segment for day two of Democratic arguments by suggesting they were "Painting a damning portrait of the President." The lone negative evaluation for Democrats came from NBC News political director Chuck Todd on Saturday, January 25, when he shared his frustrations with how the managers seemed to be unable to convince Senate Republicans to vote for more witnesses: You don't really any shifts.

That's compared to the 11 minutes and 34 seconds they gave to President Trump's defense team.

The most wildly imbalanced was CBS Evening News, which gave seven minutes, 42 seconds for Democrats and skimped on Trump's team with two minutes and 26 seconds.

NBC allocated seven minutes, 50 seconds for Democrats, while giving three minutes, 47 seconds to the defense.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2020/01/29/evening-news-spin-100-negative-trump-defense-95-positive-dems

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