FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
July 28, 2008 |
CONTACT: COLLEEN O’BOYLE or TIM SCHEIDERER
AT 703.683.5004 |
MRC Report: Networks Tilted 10-To-1 In Favor Of Sen. Obama World
Tour
B92 minutes of
coverage for the Democrat's eight-day trip compared to just 8 ½
minutes for Sen. McCain’s seven-day tour in March
ALEXANDRIA,
VA –
The Media Research Center today released a report documenting the
tremendous ongoing bias of NBC, ABC and CBS in their network evening
news coverage of the Presidential race. The study shows that the
three networks dedicated a whopping ninety-two
 (92)
minutes to Sen. Barack Obama’s eight-day trip to the Middle East and
Europe last week, while the Big Three aired only eight and one-half
(8 ½) minutes worth of reporting on Sen. John McCain’s very similar
March trip to many of the same destinations.
The CBS
Evening News was the most obviously tilted, with more than 34
minutes of Obama coverage during the eight days from July 20 through
July 27. Back in March, McCain's seven-day trip garnered a piddling
ten seconds from CBS, a ridiculously lopsided 200-to-1 disparity.
ABC's World News
gave Obama nearly as much coverage as CBS (about 33 minutes), or
roughly 15 times more attention than they provided McCain's trip
(slightly more than two minutes). NBC Nightly News spent
nearly 25 minutes covering Obama, or about four times more than they
gave McCain back in March (a little over six minutes).
Not only was
there copious coverage of Sen. Obama, it often bordered on being
giddy. On Thursday, NBC's Brian Williams touted how "the first ever
African-American running as presumptive nominee of the Democratic
Party brought throngs of people into the center of Berlin, streaming
into this city, surging to get close to him, to hear his message,"
while ABC featured the reaction of one German who proclaimed Obama
"my new Messiah."
MRC
President L. Brent Bozell:
“Last week’s
eight day excursion into broadcast bias was unprecedented and
extraordinary, and these numbers prove it. It’s been a year of
feeble weeks for the media, but this may have been the Worst.
“92 minutes
of slavish and slobbering network coverage dedicated to Sen.
Obama versus 8-1/2 piddling minutes
of
afterthought airings for Sen. McCain, barely enough to remind
the American people that Sen. Obama does indeed still have an
opponent.
“Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson are nothing
more than the lead tenors in what has become a media-wide
perversion of Handel’s Messiah.”
To schedule an interview with MRC President
Brent Bozell or another MRC spokesperson,
please contact Tim Scheiderer (x. 126) or Colleen O’Boyle (x.
122) at (703) 683-5004.
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