President Trump got his only honeymoon with the press during his entire presidency — but it was very brief. Broadcasters offered Mr. Trump positive coverage for a mere 48 hours following a pivotal event, a new study found.
“After Attorney General William Barr released the key findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month-long investigation, the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts showered Donald Trump with good press (80 percent positive) for the first time since he became president,” wrote Rich Noyes, senior analyst for Newsbusters.org, a conservative watchdog which has monitored the tone and content of Mr. Trump’s news coverage since his campaign days.
“The good news for the White House only lasted for two nights, from Sunday evening, March 24 through Monday evening, March 25,” Mr. Noyes said.
The broadcasters immediately lapsed into their old bias.
“After that, the networks resumed their lopsidedly hostile (79 percent negative) coverage of the President and his administration, as their news agenda highlighted liberal talking points: the potential demise of ObamaCare, imaginary cuts to the Special Olympics, and the ongoing battle over immigration policy,” the analyst wrote.
A previous Newsbusters report found that 90 percent of the coverage of Mr. Trump’s was negative during his campaign, a finding which did not change even two years into his presidency. That certainly did not change during the lead-up to the release of information about the Mueller report.
“From March 1 through March 23, the spin of Trump coverage on the evening news looked about the same as every other month of his presidency: out of 176 evaluative comments from reporters, anchors or non-partisan sources, 161 (or 91 percent) were negative, vs. just 15 (9 percent) that were positive,” Mr. Noyes said.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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