Category: Trump

Networks Delay Spending Bill Coverage

President Trump just overcame another high-pressure challenge: a government shutdown if Congress couldn’t agree on a spending bill. Government funding expired April 28 which coincided with Trumps hundredth day in office. The administration aimed to fulfill key campaign promises before time ran out on the first 100 days....

ABC Shows Lengthy Press Room Exchange with Sean Spicer

Journalists try not to make themselves a part the news, limiting the amount of airtime a reporter is on screen during a story. That wasn’t the case when ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported on former national security adviser Michael Flynn on March 31. “Flynn talked a lot...

Questioning Loyalties to the President

On March 14 NBC’s evening news showed both parties’ lack of support for the healthcare bill. It also showed House Speaker Paul Ryan saying he is not going to defend President Donald Trump. NBC correspondent Peter Alexander said, “The fight over health care is also raising new...

NBC Compares GOP Health-care Collapse to Basketball

You might say Capitol Hill is like sports, an ideological faceoff between politicians on either side of the aisle. NBC’s coverage of the GOP’s health care failure on March 24 took the comparison a step further. NBC’s Hallie Jackson described the day’s events while an on-screen...

Mixed Coverage of Bannon Rare Appearance

All three networks covered Steve Bannon’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference differently, but why did CBS spend a significant amount of time on him, while NBC and ABC didn’t? On Feb. 23, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon made a rare appearance at CPAC....

Spell Checking Becoming the New Fact Checking

  Both ABC and CBS pointed out a typo in one of President Donald Trump’s tweets, but NBC didn’t. Is it newsworthy that the president made a spelling mistake in a tweet? On March 4, Trump tweeted four times, accusing former President Obama of wiretapping Trump...

CBS Claims Trump Is at the End of His Fuse

The Feb. 16 CBS Evening News characterization of President Trump’s whirlwind press conference was unique. “Today we learned the length of the president’s fuse—28 days.” –@ScottPelley weighs in on @POTUS’ press conference https://t.co/HOjG2HJ8AN pic.twitter.com/f1YzKmxhNW — CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) February 16, 2017 “Today we learned the...

NBC Questions Voters but Tells Us Nothing

On February 17, NBC Nightly News was back in Kenosha, Wisconsin—for the second time since the inauguration—to find out what voters are thinking about President Trump’s first 30 days in office. Kenosha County was evenly split in the 2016 presidential election, with less than 300 votes...

ABC Compares Trump Deportations to Obama’s

ABC and CBS covered the deportations around the country after President Trump took office. They each focused on the same woman, but the stories they told were very different. In its Feb. 9 broadcast, CBS featured Guadalupe García de Rayos, a Mexican immigrant living in Phoenix before...