Topic: NewsBusters
From a March 5 NewsBusters post by Scott Whitlock:
Despite the fact that John McCain officially clinched the GOP nomination on Tuesday, the three network morning shows on Wednesday devoted almost a full hour of air time to covering the Democratic presidential race and barely nine minutes for the Republicans. Additionally, the Arizona senator did not appear on NBC's "Today" show, ABC's "Good Morning America" or the CBS "Early Show." Democratic Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, however, showed up on all three programs.
The network morning shows featured the Democratic presidential candidates for a grand total of 59 minutes and 12 seconds. McCain and his remaining rival, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, received a mere nine minutes and ten seconds of coverage. Now, obviously, the Democratic race is a close, hard fought contest. So, it's natural that it would receive more attention. However, McCain's very act of winning the nomination should be a well covered event, especially considering the candidate's remarkable rise from the political dead. The networks, apparently, saw it a different way.
Hasn't it been all but clear for weeks that McCain would be the Republican nominee? Accordingly, "McCain's very act of winning the nomination" is an anticlimax, and "the candidate's remarkable rise from the political dead" was covered weeks ago.
Curiously, McCain's endorsement by anti-Catholic evangelist John Hagee continues to get even less coverage from the MRC than the networks' coverage of McCain's 'very act of winning the nomination." Why is that?
UPDATE: Whitlock's post also appears in the March 6 MRC CyberAlert.
