Democrats Win Morning-Show Primary

Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center assessed all morning-show coverage on the Big Three from January 1 through July 31. In those 517 campaign segments, the networks offered nearly twice as many segments to Democrats as Republicans, a margin of 284 to 152. (Another 66 stories focused on both parties.) When the sample is narrowed down just to interviews with the candidates or their spouses and staffers, the morning shows gave out nearly three times as much free air time to Democrats (4 hours, 35 minutes) than they gave to Republicans (1 hour and 44 minutes).

Even Al
Gore, a man the morning anchors love so much that CBS’s Harry Smith
begged him to put on a Gore for President button, drew 29 minutes on
the morning shows this year, giving this unannounced candidate more
attention than any announced GOP contender except for McCain.

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