Research

The PBS News Hour marked its 50th anniversary last year (and the show’s first year deprived of taxpayer funding) with a clip package of its coverage of various historical events, while declaring the program had traditionally strove to be “even-handed to a fault.” If that were ever true, the current version of the show, co-anchored by Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz, certainly can’t make that claim.A new Media Research Center study tracked and labeled every…

Remarkably, it’s been a year since the infamous FBI letter about Jeffrey Epstein that triggered a torrent of TV news coverage ghoulishly seeking to tie President Trump to the billionaire sex criminal’s life of ruin. In that time, a Media Research Center analysis has found ABC, CBS, and NBC devoted a gargantuan 1,627 minutes across their flagship morning, evening, and Sunday morning political shows. Put another way, the “Big Three” have devoted an…

For the late night comedy shows, the first half of 2026 was defined by the final airing in May of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. But the political agenda of Colbert and his late night colleagues remained unchanged in January through June this year: No one expressing conservative views was ever granted a guest slot on a late night comedy show while 112 liberals were awarded guest appearances. This study looked at the five daily late night…

The news media’s obsession with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting pool has continued apace. Earlier this week, we found that TV news had spent almost seven hours on the story in just the past nine days. As of Friday morning June 25, that total has reached almost ten hours across left-wing cable (CNN and MSNBC) and broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). MRC analysts looked at all reflecting pool coverage on major left-wing cable and broadcast networks…

Thanks to the 24-hour news cycle, a nonsensical or unimportant story need only capture the attention of a few journalists in order for it to receive an absurdly disproportionate amount of coverage. Such is the case with the algae-riddled Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on TV news, which over the past week, has gobbled up nearly seven hours of airtime on liberal cable (CNN and MS NOW) and broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). MRC analysts looked at…

On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement that claimed the alleged ringleader of the foiled terrorist attack on the UFC fight at the White House the previous Sunday is an illegal immigrant. Since then, ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight, NBC’s Nightly News and Today, and CBS’s Evening News and CBS Mornings have not disclosed this new information to the viewers of their morning and evening newscasts. By contrast, the networks have continued to obsess…

The American news media are covering up one of the most horrific cases of mass-sexual abuse and violence perpetrated against young girls in recent history. On Tuesday, an independent initiative in the UK, chaired by Reform MP Rupert Lowe, released a 219-page report documenting decades of rampant sexual abuse, torture, and trafficking perpetrated against as many as 250,000 underage British girls, primarily by Pakistani Muslims. The report details…

Apple News played favorites when it covered the Republican primary elections held in several states in May, seizing on leftist media coverage to push an anti-Trump narrative. The news aggregator relied on 63% leftist media coverage compared to only 13% right-leaning coverage.  By cherry-picking the most biased coverage against Trump-endorsed candidates and selecting five times as many leftist outlets to address the Republican primaries, Apple News was…

On May 26, Vice President JD Vance announced that the Trump administration’s anti-fraud task force had recovered $160 billion in COVID-19 relief funds, student aid, and small-business loans. This is taxpayer money that was supposed to go to deserving recipients but instead went to scammers and con artists. Sadly but not unpredictably, this major announcement was not covered by any of the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) on their evening or…

The journalists appear to have lost their enthusiasm for exposing police brutality, if their attitude toward Henry Nowak is any indication. As of June 1, left-wing cable (CNN, MSNBC) and broadcast (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS) networks have completely ignored the gruesome murder and alleged police abuse of White British teenager Henry Nowak. MRC analysts looked through Nexis and SnapStream transcripts going back to December 4, 2025 for any mention of Nowak on…

Three major outlets experienced sudden swings in their audiences this year—changes that align almost perfectly with how often they were promoted on some of the biggest news aggregators. Newsweek’s traffic plunged in April after steady promotion the month prior. Qatari-backed Al Jazeera saw its readership explode in March. And leftist outlet The Minnesota Star Tribune rode a steep wave upward in January before bottoming out again the next month. The timing was too consistent to ignore…

Stephen Colbert was well into his farewell media tour when he told GQ, “I think I'm more conservative than people think.” However, according to an aggregation of previous NewsBusters studies and quote packages, that is far from true. Since NewsBusters began counting jokes in January 2023, 87 percent of Colbert's political jokes have targeted conservatives. Likewise, since September 2022, more than 99 percent of his political guests have been liberals. MRC President David Bozell said in a…

Season 51 of NBC’s Saturday Night Live recently came to an end, and it was considerably more liberal than Season 50. A new NewsBusters study has found that 91 percent of the season’s Weekend Update jokes were directed at conservatives, while 83 percent of its cold open political characters were conservatives or Republicans. For this study, NewsBusters analysts examined all 20 shows of the season from October 4, 2025, through May 16, 2026.   Weekend Update MRC analysts found that Weekend…

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement will hold a hearing into the “dangerous consequences” of sanctuary city policies that will primarily focus on the actions of George Soros-backed Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano.  Back on May 7, the Justice Department announced it is investigating Descano’s preferential treatment of “illegal alien” criminal defendants.  The head of the DOJ…

Apple News in April avoided its self-proclaimed role as a news aggregator and instead took on the role of an anti-Trump administration propaganda outlet, heavily promoting articles from leftist media over right-leaning media on the two most prominent issues of the month by a margin of 99 to 3. In April, much of Apple News’s coverage revolved around the two major issues of the month, the Iran conflict and the Trump administration’s immigration efforts,…