Over the past two weeks, broadcast networks were utterly consumed by news of the Trump administration’s tariffs, to the degree that the topic took up more than a third of their flagship morning and evening newscasts’ total run time. Yet during that same time period, these networks spared barely any time at all to cover some of the positive economic news, such as the declining Consumer Price Index and a stronger-than-expected jobs report.

MRC analysts looked at all coverage of tariffs on ABC, CBS, and NBC’s flagship morning and evening news shows, from April 2 through April 11. During that time, these networks aired a jaw-dropping seven hours and two minutes of reporting about the Trump administration’s trade war, and all three surpassing two hours each. ABC led the pack with 148 minutes, followed by NBC with 144 minutes and CBS with 130 minutes dedicated to the topic.

But apparently these networks’ fevered interest in the economy did not extent to the March jobs report, which indicated the U.S. economy “added far more jobs than expected” in March. ABC and NBC gave it only a passing mention on the evening of April 4 (14 seconds on ABC, and just 11 on NBC). CBS, which skipped the report entirely that night, spent a scant 20 seconds on it the following morning. All told, the combined coverage across all three networks topped out at a pitiful 45 seconds.

Meanwhile, during that same period (the evening of April 4 through the evening of April 5), the broadcast networks gave tariffs a whopping 62 times more coverage than the jobs report, amounting to 46 minutes and 50 seconds of air time. ABC again topped the list (16 minutes and 50 seconds) minutes and 53 seconds, followed by NBC (16 minutes and 50 seconds) and CBS (12 minutes and seven seconds).

The networks also were also wholly uninterested in the April 10 report which showed the American Consumer Price Index had declined 0.1 percent. ABC skipped the aggregate CPI decline entirely, instead only airing a single 16-second mention that egg prices had slightly increased. CBS, meanwhile, gave the declining prices just nine seconds the evening after the report came out, just barely beating out NBC’s paltry eight seconds.

Recession talk also ramped up on the broadcast airwaves over the past two weeks. From April 2 through April 11, the term was brought up a combined 74 times on all three networks. Even when economists began airing more optimistic sentiment about the odds of a recession after the Trump administration eased up on its tariffs late last week, the doom and gloom continued apace on broadcast networks.

It’s perfectly reasonable for these major news networks to cover a major ongoing trade war, or for them to spend time on a dramatic dip in the stock market. But when these same networks can only be bothered to spare a few disinterested seconds on strong economic news, one wonders whether primary goal is not covering the economy qua the economy, but rather using any negative economic information they can find in order to pillory the Trump administration.