Free Republic

One of the Trump Administration's major accomplishments since taking office has been the virtual destruction of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, including the capture of the terror group's capital city of Raqqa in Syria. Under Trump, U.S.-backed coalition forces have regained nearly all of the territory that the self-ordained caliphate occupied in 2015. Yet on network evening broadcasts, the President and his administration have received virtually no credit for this achievement. Since Inauguration Day (January 20, 2017), the three broadcast network evening newscasts have spent more than 10,000 minutes on the Trump presidency, and only 33 minutes (0.33%)...

Liberal reporters are scandalized by what they say is President Trump’s effort to “discredit” and “undermine” special counsel Robert Mueller, worried that it could presage an attempt to “remove Mueller, or end his investigation.” But when President Bill Clinton was being investigated by Ken Starr, journalists applauded Democratic and White House attacks on the independent counsel, and frequently joined in themselves. Today’s journalists seem appalled by attempts by the President and his allies that question Mueller’s credibility. Washington Post reporters Devlin Barrett and Sean Sullivan sounded the alarm in a front-page story on December 7: “Several law enforcement officials said...

Here’s one top takeaway from network news coverage in 2017: Sneaky Russian influence in American politics is a huge story if it involves Republicans/Donald Trump, but a non-story if it involves Democrats/Hillary Clinton. MRC analysts have been tracking all evening news coverage of the Trump administration since Inauguration Day. From Inauguration Day, January 20, through last Friday, October 20, these broadcasts have aired an astonishing 1,000 minutes of coverage discussing Russia’s attempt to boost Trump in 2016, and speculation that Trump’s campaign may have colluded with the Russians in this project. Last week, The Hill published new information about Russian...

With Congressman Steve Scalise still recovering from an attack by a crazed leftist, MSNBC’s Joy Reid couldn’t keep from politicizing the tragedy as she took a cheap shot at the congressman’s record. On June 17 the host of AM Joy tweeted “Rep. #Scalise was shot by a white man with a violent background, and saved by a black lesbian police officer, and yet...” She then accompanied the tweet with a graphic of what were, in her view, his political offenses: “Rep. Steve Scalise’s Record: Co-sponsored bill to amend Constitution, Define marriage as between a man and a woman; Voted for...

If you ever doubted that the media see the news through a partisan prism, consider this: in less than two days, ABC, CBS and NBC devoted nearly 7 times as much coverage to Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russian Ambassador in his role as a U.S. Senator than they did when then-Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress in June 2012. On March 2, Democrats accused Sessions of misleading Congress by not disclosing that he met with the Russian ambassador to the United States twice while he was serving as Senator. Despite admitting that the statements Sessions...

The broadcast morning and evening news shows have spent 20 minutes and 18 seconds focusing on White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s comments about the size of Donald Trump’s Inauguration crowd. Meanwhile, when President Trump signed a far more consequential executive order that limits the penalties from the Affordable Care Act, the same networks spent only 1 minute and 39 seconds covering it – less than one-twelfth the coverage. On Sunday's World News Tonight, for example, ABC correspondent Mary Bruce took this jab: "Today, the White House defended their denial of reality." All three networks showed NBC Meet the Press...

Here’s what is most unusual about this week in news coverage of the GOP nomination drama: what’s not the top story of the week. On April 13, ABC’s World News Tonight correspondent Tom Llamas devoted most of that night’s report to chilling death threats against the Colorado state Republican party chairman, angered at how Donald Trump failed to win any delegates at the weekend party convention. Besides that one report, and two minor mentions (one on ABC’s Good Morning America and on Thursday’s CBS Evening News, that’s all the broadcast news attention given to reports of actual death threats in...