BROADCAST BIAS: Networks remain negative on Trump even after Iran stops firing
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President Trump recently complained, “I get 93 percent bad coverage,” and studies by the Media Research Center, where I work, have repeatedly shown that the evening newscasts on the broadcast networks are about 90 percent bad, month after month. How is that possible? It is because these networks will get negative results no matter what side the president, or the country, takes.
A slogan might seem like “Good news is not news.” Or maybe it’s not a big deal.
Take Artemis on a spacewalk to the moon. On April 1, in what may be the most important moment in American space history since 1972, ABC’s “Good Morning America” aired seven anti-Trump reports over 15 minutes before it began covering space. ABC had a vested interest in arguing that Trump was willing to undermine confidence in the midterm elections by reversing the ineligibility of mail-in voting.
Later in the day, when it was clear that the launch of Artemis was a success, the NBC reporter Tom Costello did not want any waving of the USA flag: “I think it is important and important to take a moment and say wow, we must unite, not as Americans, not as North American people, but as people, we are proud of the success here. – that people were able to do this.”
WHY TRUMP CRIMES IRAN WAR BROADCAST AS WORST – FURNISHED BY RHETORICAL FCC BACKING
Then there was the courage to rescue the pilot from the Iranian territory, which is obviously very good news. But during the Easter program of “Sunday Morning” on CBS, they devoted four minutes and four seconds to the war in Iran but spent only 43 seconds of that on the rescued pilot, or about 18% of their focus on Iran.
Others were Pentagon reporter David Martin, who presented experts critical of Trump’s threats to damage Iran’s infrastructure. First, there was former Obama aide Tess Bridgeman: “To destroy all the power plants, to threaten repressive actions against citizens to try to bring the government to the negotiating table. – those kinds of things are completely illegal.
Then there was the courage to rescue the pilot from the Iranian territory, which is obviously very good news. But during the Easter program of ‘Sunday Morning’ on CBS, they devoted four minutes and four seconds to the war in Iran but spent only 43 seconds of that on the rescued pilot.
Trump’s coverage is so unrelentingly bad that the Islamic state of Iran, or what’s left of it, has almost gotten more positive press than the president. These networks talk about Trump’s punishment of the Iranian people, but they cannot focus on the hundreds of protesters who were killed by the Iranian government in the weeks before the start of the war.
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Trump’s Easter message on Truth Social threatening Iran angered all the anchors and reporters. “Open the f—ing Strait [of Hormuz]You crazy crazy people, otherwise you will live in Hell,” he wrote.
The following night, CBS White House reporter Weijia Jiang promoted the opposing view: “In an open letter, more than 100 international legal experts argued that bombing sites is a potential war crime. Trump said he doesn’t care about that.” He said, “I hope I don’t have to.” These threats are his unique way of negotiating.
The networks easily found a hundred “experts” to accuse Trump of “war crimes,” but not “experts” who accused Iran of human rights abuses.
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PBS found one of the signatories of the open letter, former attorney general Rachel Van Landingham, who wrote a series of scathing op-eds against Trump and Pete HegsethPete Hegseth on the MS NOW website. (PBS and MS NOW are inseparable.) He denounced the president faithfully: “He is threatening to make our soldiers participate in war crimes and thereby tarnish their honor and soul and bring back moral damage. Why? Why? Because threatening to destroy every bridge and every power plant in the entire state of Iran is called an indiscriminate attack. That is a war crime.” The PBS expert dropped the word “war crime” 11 times in his interview.
When Trump announced the ceasefire on Tuesday, the TV spin turned shamelessly. Trump went from war criminal to TACO creator on Tuesday, sporting the liberal catchphrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.” It sounds odd to describe Trump ordering a series of devastating military strikes on Iran as “getting out,” but irony is part of the broadcast network’s toolbox.
The CBS News broadcast service brought in Financial Times analyst Robert Armstrong, who coined the term “TACO” last year to describe Trump’s approach to tax negotiations and how the markets are moving. He explained that he thought the acronym sounded funny and played on Trump’s “obsession” with the Mexican border. All liberals clearly agree.
The comedians of the night are jumping. ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel commented: “So, all day today, everyone, especially the people of Iran, was wondering if their civilization was going to die tonight. Well, good news, it didn’t. It was a TACO Tuesday of all TACO Tuesdays. The president decided not to give up the chalupa for at least another two weeks.”
As with the end of the arms in Gaza, the networks remain negative, marking all the “chaotic” episodes that show that the ceasefire was partial, and that it was chaotic.
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The pattern never ends.
Trump’s network coverage was poor even in the first days after Trump’s shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024.
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No matter what direction Trump takes, it’s always wrong.
Maybe that’s why the president calls it “fake news.”
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