NEWS AND OPINION:
Biased broadcast news coverage of the Republican Party persists. A new study from the Media Research Center has the details. The longstanding liberal leanings of major broadcasters — ABC, CBS and NBC — emerged this week in coverage of the nation’s economy.
“While warning of the real dangers of default, the networks pretty much ignored the dangers of the rising national debt, and painted Republican proposals to trim spending as extreme attempts to ‘gut’ or ‘slash’ liberal programs,” wrote Rich Noyes, a senior editor at the conservative press watchdog that conducted the study.
“The Media Research Center analyzed all 74 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories that discussed the debt ceiling from January 1 through May 27, the night that the deal was struck,” he said in the analysis, which was released Tuesday.
That coverage was an exercise in “blaming Republicans,” Mr. Noyes wrote.
He found ample evidence of finger-pointing in the news broadcasts — revealing that the GOP caught some noteworthy blame for the potentially catastrophic and alarming situation.
“Out of 44 soundbites from anchors, reporters and a handful of nonpartisan sources, 21 of them blamed Republicans, 23 blamed both sides, and zero blamed Democrats,” Mr. Noyes wrote.
He also parsed the style of suggestive language used to describe the Republican proposal to trim the budget.
“In nearly one-fourth of stories (17 out of 74), reporters cast this proposal as extreme, using terms such as ‘deep,’ ‘steep,’ ‘slash’ and ‘gut’ to characterize the Republican cuts,” Mr. Noyes said.
And the takeaway message here? Tim Graham — an executive editor and podcaster at the Media Research Center — points the finger at “Democrat-messaging” broadcasters.
“They can’t be bothered to offer the most basic facts in budget coverage. What is the budget for the current fiscal year? What was the last budget deficit? How large is the national debt? These are questions that are rarely answered by news anchors. What we get is a lot of horse-race jockeying and finger-pointing instead of facts. They must think the viewers are too stupid to juggle numbers,” Mr. Graham observed in his review of the study.
TRUMP APPEAL PERSISTS
Former President Donald Trump remains a factor in 2024, suggests a new Monmouth University poll.
“Among voters who name Trump as their top-of-mind preference for the GOP presidential nomination, 74% say he is definitely the strongest candidate the party can put up against [President] Biden and 21% say he probably is. Among those who express support for another candidate or have no choice at this stage, nearly 4 in 10 still feel Trump is either definitely (23%) or probably (16%) the strongest nominee the GOP can field. Only 22% of this group says the strongest Republican contender would definitely be someone other than Trump and 33% say it would probably be another candidate,” an analysis of the findings said.
“If your main argument to Republican voters is that Trump wouldn’t be the party’s strongest nominee, you’ve got a heck of a challenge ahead of you,” Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a written statement.
“There’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem with assessing electability. As we found in our polling during the 2020 Democratic primaries, if voters back a candidate based on issues or character they also tend to feel that candidate is the most electable,” he continued.
“However, this still underscores the larger point in this poll. If your message to voters who support Trump is that he cannot win, you are going to hit a brick wall. Even if you eat into the group who thinks he is only ‘probably’ the strongest candidate, you may still not capture enough of the Republican electorate to overcome Trump’s hardcore base support,” Mr. Murray said.
See survey particulars in the Poll du Jour at column’s end.
TRUMP TV
Like to track the political trajectory of the aforementioned Donald Trump?
Fox News primetime host Sean Hannity will present a one-hour town hall meeting with the former president starting at 9 p.m. EDT on Thursday.
The event in Clive, Iowa — a town of 19,000 just west of Des Moines — is centered on the 2024 presidential race and the overall state of the country and yes, there will be questions from the audience.
BUSY, BUSY, BUSY
Political outsider and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy returns to New Hampshire on Thursday, And he is busy — very busy.
At 6 p.m. EDT he’ll be attending a “Lobster Bake Dinner” with the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women in the town of New Castle.
Come Friday, the candidate has five back-to-back events — an early morning voter meet-and-greet in the state capital of Concord, followed by a pair of “legislator’s roundtable” events two hours later, followed by a luncheon with local home builders.
The candidate then journeys 23 miles north to Laconia, where he will board the grand Mount Washington tour boat with 300 fellow Republicans for a “First in the Nation Dinner Cruise” on a local lake.
“Vivek will address the audience and then will spend the remainder of the cruise meeting and talking with attendees to learn about their concerns and to answer questions about why he is fighting to revive our shared national identity and spark a new American dream,” his campaign notes in an advisory.
It’s crowded up that way, though. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is also in the Granite State this week with wife Casey DeSantis — and he has four events in four New Hampshire towns on Thursday alone. The start time here is 8 a,m., and the events last until 4 p.m.
All in a day’s work.
POLL DU JOUR
• 45% of Republican voters — regardless of whether they support former President Donald Trump — say Mr. Trump is “definitely the strongest candidate to beat President Biden” in the 2024 presidential election.
• 18% say Mr. Trump is “probably the strongest candidate” to beat Mr. Biden in the general election.
• 19% say another Republican candidate “would probably be a stronger candidate than Mr. Trump” against Mr. Biden.
• 13% say another Republican candidate is “definitely a stronger candidate than Mr. Trump” against Mr. Biden.
• 4% “don’t know” about the issue.
SOURCE: A Monmouth University poll of 655 registered Republican voters conducted May 18-24.
• Contact Jennifer Harper on jharper@washingtontimes.com.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.