Mainstream media coverage of President Donald Trump at the midpoint of his term was 90 percent negative, a study by the conservative media watchdog reported Tuesday.
The Media Research Center looked at media coverage of the president on ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts, finding that Trump was the biggest story of last year, accounting for almost 87 hours of coverage, or 28 percent of all evening news airtime.
The number was down from 99 hours of coverage in 2017, MRC reported.
The data, posted on MRC’s News Busters website, found of that coverage, 90 percent was negative, matching the negative press coverage MRC reported in 2017.
Public opinion of Trump improved slightly last year, from an average 40 percent on Jan. 1, 2018, to 42.7 percent the following Dec. 31, according to the polling average calculated by Real Clear Politics.
Here’s the MRC breakdown:
- For a second year in a row, the Russia investigation was the single most-covered topic amid the networks’ Trump coverage, garnering 858 minutes of airtime. Since January 20, 2017, the Russia probe has received 2,092 minutes of coverage on the three evening newscasts, MRC reported.
- Other top topics were immigration policy, with 643 minutes of coverage; the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court Justice, with 435 minutes; the North Korean nuclear missiles issue, with 410 minutes; and the former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen investigation, which tallied 341 minutes of coverage.
- The partial government shutdown was the top Trump topic in December, garnering 67 minutes of airtime that month, with nearly 97 percent of the evaluations of Trump’s handling of the shutdown impasse negative.
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