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Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Newsmax Gives Loving, Uncritical Coverage to Trump Rallies
Topic: Newsmax

The sucking up to Donald Trump continues apace at Newsmax, which is quite desperate to remain in his good graces.

For his rally in January in Arizona, he got a Dec. 31 article from the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy announcing it. McCarthy proclaimed that "Trump and his allies have said that voter fraud in several key battleground states, including Arizona, gave Biden the election," which was surprisingly followed with a little bit of pushback: "A Republican-backed review of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, Arizona's largest county, ended without proof that the election was stolen." A Jan. 11 article by Nicole Wells followed up by touting how "Trump announced the program speakers Tuesday for his first 2022 rally in the battleground state of Arizona."

The rally itself generated a barrage of "news" articles, even though the rally could easily have been summed up in a single article:

These were all straight stenography pieces, with no attempt to fact-check anything Trump said, even though his history of being truthful is less than stellar.The same for a Jan. 17 article featuring an interview Trump did with Newsmax TV host John Bachman before the rally.

As the interview showed, Newsmax is continuing to work hard to be symbiotic witih Trump. A Jan. 20 article touted how good Newsmax's ratings were for its rally coverage:

Donald Trump may have left the White House a year ago, but ratings for Newsmax’s live coverage from his recent Arizona rally suggest the former president is as popular as ever.

Newsmax’s start-to-finish broadcast of Trump’s Jan. 15 rally in Florence, Arizona, drew 2.9 million viewers in total audience reach on cable alone, according to Nielsen.

A total of more than 5 million Americans watched the Trump rally when OTT streaming platforms that carry Newsmax are included, network data shows.

The new year and Joe Biden’s falling approval ratings seem to be increasing interest in the 45th president.

Newsmax’s cable audience for the rally was up almost 40% over his last rally, held in Iowa on Oct. 9.

Newsmax did the same thing for Trump's rally in Texas the a couple weeks later: a story on the speaker list, then one touting that Newsmax would air it, complete with an "IMPORTANT" note at the end: "Get a reminder about the rally time and latest Trump news from Newsmax, just text REMIND to 39-747 and you’ll be on the Trump List!" Then another barrage of articles on the rally itself:

Again, that was followed by an article touting the rally's ratings, this time with a focus on trying to own Fox News:

Newsmax was the big ratings-winner with its exclusive cable coverage of former President Donald Trump's rally in Texas last weekend.

Some 2.9 million cable viewers tuned in to watch the event live from Conroe — and 1.1 million of them were adults ages 35-64, the demographic craved by advertisers.

Though Newsmax is carried in 20 million fewer homes than Fox, total audience impressions for both networks during Trump's speech was almost at parity, both drawing around 1.4 million viewers per minute, according to Nielsen.

Reporter Bill Hoffmann even promoted a  Washington Post article that detailed how ridiculous its coverage was:

"Newsmax treated the Texas rally like a Super Bowl, with pre-game coverage and postgame analysis from Bill O'Reilly and Ben Carson — both former Fox News personalities — as well as an on-screen poll asking viewers whether they want Trump to run again," the Post's media reporter Jeremy Barr wrote.

Hoffmann doesn't seem to realize the Post may have mocking Newsmax for such over-the-top coverage. Or maybe he did: he didn't reproduce a statement in the article noting that "At one point, the network split the screen between Trump’s rally and an advertisement for Newsmax-branded hats."


Posted by Terry K. at 1:47 PM EST

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