Leading up to Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate, CNN has dedicated 580 minutes covering real estate mogul Donald Trump in its prime-time shows in the past two weeks, compared to an average of 10 minutes on his competitors, an analysis shows.
A Media Research Center study found that coverage of Mr. Trump’s campaign took up nearly 78 percent of all CNN’s prime-time GOP campaign coverage between August 24 and Sept. 4. The 16 non-Trump candidates got a combined total of just 167 minutes, much of which was spent comparing them to Mr. Trump, the study said. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush came in second with the most coverage, averaging 88 minutes of airtime.
Former New York Gov. George Pataki received the least airtime of the GOP contenders, getting no coverage in the two-week timeframe — only sightly less than the six seconds Rick Santorum, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee received.
“Trump is the media’s addiction. When he speaks, he is given something no other candidate gets. That’s wall-to-wall coverage here on cable news. He sucks up all the oxygen,” Brian Stelter, CNN’s senior media correspondent acknowledged on his own show on Aug. 23.
GOP consultants say the Trump frenzy has to end.
“Television networks can’t sustain this coverage of him, he’s getting millions of dollars worth in free ad time,” said Katie Packer Gage, Mitt Romney’s former deputy campaign manager in 2012. “At some point these news organizations will have to pretend to be actual news organizations.”
• Kelly Riddell can be reached at kriddell@washingtontimes.com.
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