LameStreet-Media Diva

Two Surprise Presidential Candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. But Only Trump Fascinates the Media - http://ift.tt/1MMAdWo

Quote:

…On average, ABC, CBS and NBC named Sanders in their news stories 17 percent as often as they named Trump–roughly one story that included the senator for every six with the developer. Leading newspapers–the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times and USA Today–ran three times as many Trump stories as Sanders stories: Sanders was mentioned 34 percent as often as Trump in these papers. (The Journal‘s articles are available as abstracts, not full text, on Nexis.) The New York Times had the highest ratio of Sanders to Trump mentions, at 49 percent; the Journal had the lowest, with 22 percent. All the cable news channels talked about Trump more often than Sanders–even MSNBC, which often caters to a progressive audience. MSNBC did come closest to parity of any outlet we looked at, however, with 67 percent as many Sanders as Trump stories. Fox News also had relatively frequent references to Sanders, 53 percent as many as its Trump references. CNN was the most Trump-heavy of the cable networks, mentioning Sanders only 33 percent as often. Overall, cable news referred to Sanders an average of 51 percent as often as Trump. Public broadcasting didn’t pay more attention to Sanders than did for-profit cable. On NPR, Sanders came up 39 percent as often as Trump on NPR, and 56 percent as frequently on PBS NewsHour–averaging to 48 percent. On average, the 13 outlets we surveyed had 36 percent as many references to Sanders as to Trump. While these candidates are backed by roughly as many voters in their own parties, among the general public Sanders is far more popular; in recent polls, 59 percent express a negative opinion of Trump, with about half as many liking him, whereas Sanders is one of the rare politicians who is viewed more often favorably than unfavorably. On the rare occasions when pollsters match up Republican hopefuls with anyone besides Clinton, Sanders trumps Trump…

It isn’t people in general who are fascinated with Trump, it’s the media producers and editors who can’t get enough of the circus.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1PK9Bni