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The usual narrative is that coverage of Trump and Sanders couldn't be more different, with Sanders struggling for attention while Trump received vast amounts of
by 07d046 10y ago
The usual narrative is that coverage of Trump and Sanders couldn't be more different, with Sanders struggling for attention while Trump received vast amounts of free advertising. There is a lot of truth to it, but, according to a study:
> Sanders’ media coverage during the pre-primary period was a sore spot with his followers, who complained the media was biased against his candidacy. In relative terms at least, their complaint lacks substance. Among candidates in recent decades who entered the campaign with no money, no organization, and no national following, Sanders fared better than nearly all of them. Sanders’ initial low poll numbers marked him as less newsworthy than Clinton but, as he gained strength, the news tilted in his favor.
And for Trump:
> By our estimate, Trump’s coverage in the eight news outlets in our study was worth roughly $55 million. Trump reaped $16 million in ad-equivalent space in The New York Times alone, which was more than he spent on actual ad buys in all media during all of 2015. In our eight outlets, the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s coverage was more than one-and-a-half times the ad-equivalent value of Bush, Rubio, and Cruz’s coverage, more than twice that of Carson’s, and more than three times that of Kasich’s. Moreover, our analysis greatly underestimates the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s exposure in that it’s based on only eight media outlets, whereas the whole of the media world was highlighting his candidacy. Senator Cruz might well be correct in claiming that Trump’s media coverage was worth the equivalent of $2 billion in ad buys.
It's an interesting read.
http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-trump-clinton-sanders/ http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-...
- MarkMc 10y agoWhat's the media supposed to do about Trump? Keep quiet about the outrageous thing he did today because they already reported 4 outrageous things he did last week? Trump has received more media coverage because he has simply said and done more things that are newsworthy.
- nogbit 10y agoI think that's the rub, "newsworthy". He never really got in the news for the right things (if there were any I don't know). After August, if he sat himself in a closet and never did or said anything (and that recording never was released) he would of won very easily.
- ones_and_zeros 10y agoInteresting Ctrl+F Sanders: 35, Clinton: 49, Trump: 70. > Among candidates in recent decades who entered the campaign with no money, no organization, and no national following, Sanders fared better than nearly all of them. Sanders’ initial low poll numbers marked him as less newsworthy than Clinton but, as he gained strength, the news tilted in his favor. This is revisionist history. I think the issue I and many of my friends have is that he did have organization and did have a national following but lacked the appropriate media coverage still. I can't comment on money but I'll concede that Hillary had more money based on the fact that they have essentially been raising money for her campaign for the past 10 years. Maybe, just maybe, Clinton had better poll numbers because she had more media coverage? Anecdotally, I remember the morning commute that I decided to never give a dime of my money to NPR when Sanders' landslide win in NH was covered, but the panel all agreed that his campaign was a no go due to Hillary having the super delegates locked up...