Nothing caused TV’s big three networks to haul out the word “outrage” more in stories last year than President Trump and the GOP, according to a new study.
ABC, CBS, and NBC used the word 229 times, and it was directed at the president and his team over 22% of the time, said a Media Research Center study.
“But don’t think the term was employed even-handedly. President Trump and his fellow Republicans received the lion’s share of the blame in this category: 51 instances, or 80% of all political outrage, while Democrats accounted for less than one-tenth of that (just five stories, or 8%). For the remaining eight cases, the individuals or organizations said to be causing outrage were not explicitly partisan,” said the analysis.
For perspective, while 51 out the nightly news “outrages” were directed at actions by Trump and the GOP, below are the other topics that got fewer “outrages:”
- Police Brutality — 45
- Racism/bigotry — 28
- Child abuse — 25
- Rape/sexual assault — 14
- Murder of police — 1
The numbers are significant in getting a bead on the bias at the networks, suggested the Media Research Center. For example, sexual predators and #MeToo perpetrators were widely in the news, yet Trump was hit with the word four times as much.
“Regardless of whether anyone at ABC, CBS, or NBC actually believes that the president and his party are three times as outrageous as rape, or twice as outrageous as child abuse, their reporting over the past year nonetheless suggests that this is the case. Because loaded terms like ‘outrage’ are subjective, these networks can add a liberal spin to their coverage without ever making a false claim,” said the report from Bill D’Agostino, a research analyst with the Media Research Analyst.
