Why is CNN spending so much of its coverage on Trump?
How much coverage? This much coverage:
When the GOP candidates assemble on CNN’s stage Wednesday night, they will be appearing on a network that has virtually ignored most of them, while spending vast amounts of time covering the now-frontrunner, businessman Donald Trump.
Back on August 23, CNN’s own senior media correspondent Brian Stelter on CNN’s Reliable Sources acknowledged, “Trump is the media’s addiction. When he speaks, he is given something no other candidate gets. That’s wall-to-wall coverage here on cable news. He sucks up all the oxygen.” Yet, even after that admission, CNN continued to elevate Trump far beyond his GOP peers.
A Media Research Center study finds that, over a two week period, coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign took up nearly 78 percent of all CNN’s prime time GOP campaign coverage ”“ 580 minutes out of a total of 747 minutes. All 16 non-Trump candidates got a combined total of just 167 minutes, much of which was spent comparing them to Trump.
So, why? It’s true that Trump is a fascinating political story. And it’s true that he’s a known celebrity and TV personality with a proven track record. So it’s legit to have quite a bit of coverage. But this seems extremely excessive, and I don’t think it’s an accident. The more attention Trump gets, the less the others get. There is very little question in my mind that CNN would like the GOP to self-destruct or at least lose an election that looks to be increasingly theirs to win if they can only muster up a bona fide candidate, and the powers-that-be at CNN think Trump is destined to lose the national if he is nominated, no matter who his opponent might be.
For the purposes of this post, it doesn’t matter whether they’re right or wrong in their prediction. I tend to think they’re right, but I confess I don’t know and that Trump could surprise me. But I strongly believe that CNN thinks he’d be a loser in the general, and they want him to be the Republican nominee, and they’re doing their best to see that’s exactly what happens because they feel they have some control over the outcome by shaping the news to benefit him right now.
Oh, and they also want their ratings to be as high as possible for tonight, and Trump equals ratings.
[ADDENDUM: Also this.]
Savvy point neo.
But I want to see CNN spend the same amount of time on the coming three-way Dem war between Hillary, Bernie and Joe.
If you want the Phoenix to rise from the ashes, you need to light matches.
The Republican Party – #BurnItDown.
Neo – You can take your argument a little further. I think CNN would be happy if Trump damages the other Republican candidates, especially the candidates with the best chances to win in a general election.
In 2012, I was struck by how “mainstream” journalists treated Ron Paul, who they would ordinarily hate. But he was damaging the other Republican candidates, and the “mainstream” journalists loved that. (There is a good chance, for instance, that he cost Romney Iowa in the general election.)
One of the things (a minor one, but still) i thought would be good about moving from NJ to FL was that at least away from NYC The Donald is not in the news as often.
And then he ran.
Neo said:
“Oh, and they also want their ratings to be as high as possible for tonight, and Trump equals ratings.”
Bingo. I hate the main stream media passionately, so I wouldn’t put anything past them, but in this case the simplest explanation is ratings Ratings and more RATINGS.
Paaanic!
Subtle!
More panic!
Ouch!
Its their idea of the conservative?
Dunno. They had Pat Buchanan on as the spokesperson for the conservative side. I didn’t like that either. Seemed similar.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/cable-tv-news-binges-on-trump-coverage-1442360415
Why is CNN spending so much of its coverage on Trump? Because they’re cable news, and cable news is lousy. This WSJ article shows CNN, FNC, and MSNBC all with roughly the same ratios.
Prediction. Big winners will be Carly, Carson and Cruz in that order.
Hugh Hewitt is an exceptional smart guy but not well known. People will be impressed.
Exceptionally smart….
Was glancing at a National Journal article titled, “Donald Trump is Getting Under President Obama’s skin”
And I came across this apparent Master Card advertisement regarding the marketing of products in a new United States.
Here it is.
It’s a “statistic” I have never seen before, and seems completely absurd, and is at extreme variance with figures given on the Wikipedia site.
If it were true it would mean a subpopulation of over 200 million was producing under 55k live births a year, instead of the almost 3 million Wiki records. A tenfold increase would still fall vastly short.
Where in the world did they get these figures?
Jim Miller:
Well put.
For LIV’s, casual voters and young people Trump will be the face of the Republican Party and there is much to dislike there. I am tired of his presentation and manner already although I agree with him on many points. He has changed the debate and added value.
Watched some of Obama today taking softball questions from CEO ‘s at the Business Roundtable.
1. How did he win the second time?
2. Boring.
3. The crony capitalists love him.
4. Delusional on climate change. Thinks Sasha and her friends are right. They’re kids!
Paul A’Barge:
There’s one big honking trouble with your theory: the phoenix is a myth.
In real life, when you burn something down, you do sometimes get new growth, such as in a forest fire. It takes a long long time, but you get it.
But that’s just one situation. The rest of the time—in the vast majority of situations—when you burn something down you get: ashes.
Natural things grow back. I’m not sure that liberal democracy is natural; it’s hardly ever sprung up from the soil. That being said, Neo, you might be getting trolled by Paul.
Tune in for the Brawndo commercials!
Because Fox news made a bundle.. however, trump wants CNN to donate a lot of that money that HE is generating for them to other things than the corporate headquarters salaries
Nick:
I don’t think he’s a troll; he’s commented here many times.
I’ve heard that CNN is increasing ad rates due to the anticipated increase in viewers. I have no problem with the increased rates and CNN keeping the increased revenues. That is business.
I’m sure that Trump is keeping all of the increased revenues related to interest in Trump – how many people are going to Trump resorts, buying Trump labeled stuff, etc.?
My intuition says it is going to be a setup, Democrat machine style.
The details will be explained post operational.
Fausta, “in the news” doesn’t exist for me, given my firewalls.
Your post on McCaskill and Akin.
Narrative: leftists try to elevate the opponent they deem best serves them as foil or, with narrative control, overlay a strawman on their opponent. Or both.
Trump is either exploiting Left strategy or complicit in it.
The media, Fox included, treat the debates as entertainment, little more then wrestling. They don’t serve the purposes of conservatives or Republicans. And certainly not Republican primary voters.
The debates should have NO leftists asking questions or organizing them, none at all. After all that’s how the Democrats have operated for decades, all leftists.
Instead they should be privately arranged and broadcast over YouTube or some other online service. After all it is not very difficult for CPAC, RedState and others to arrange for the candidates to appear at their events. Why not a set of debates ?
The Left// Press// Democrats are elevating Trump because they KNOW that they can shoot him down during a fall run.
They are terrified of Carson, Walker, Cruz or Fiorina.
So all are receiving malign neglect.
Carson is not suitable as the head of the ticket. Zero experience in government will kill him in the Fall. I don’t see him winning the ’emotional’ vote — which is where comrade Zero scored big.
Walker would be outstanding as president — but is not proving outstanding as a candidate.
I’d suspect that Lincoln would have similar difficulties.
The head of a winning ticket needs to be either Walker or Cruz. With his track record, Walker would be brutally effective in the Fall.
Contrast him with HRC// Bidden// Sanders.
As its stands, the GOPe is allowing the Democrat party cadres to select its nominee// fall guy.
I suspect that Biden wants HRC to throw in the towel before he even commits.
The idea is to let Sanders’ polling numbers and the 10,000 cuts to get her out.
Then Biden (his time) can sweep in and gracefully accept all of the super delegate votes HRC has lined up… and run away with the subsequent popular votes long before the national convention.
HRC then takes her massive campaign war chest and throws it into her favorite charity… her own.
Don’t cry for her, Argentina — or America — for that matter.
blert Says:
September 16th, 2015 at 4:56 pm
Yes!
As we listen to ’em, we should think about this:
U.S. Rejected Offers by Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria to Surrender … and Proceeded to Wage War
Dark.
m laughing at all this as its way too funny not to….
on the first order, Trump may not pretend to be what others want him to be, and just is, he is also honest… how do i know? if the left had ANYTHING no matter how small they could smear him with, it would be blown way out and on the front page and spoken endlessly… so commenting on hair, faces (his or fiorina), menstruation he never said, etc… is not a lot to smear someone with…
the people the left fear the most are people without skeletons and without dirt… this gives them no control indirectly and no way to remove them easily… the best they can do is make fun that he isnt what people want him to behave like, and some are calling him a egoist, without considering or comparing the number of times he refers to himself to the number of times obama does… who is the bigger egoist there? and putting your name on everything you do is pride as to what you do. hiding your name bespeaks hiding what isnt good. out in the open, everything with his name on it has to meet standards so no one says that X is bad and in know its trumps.
they seem to prefer the people that do what they expect and can play them over those that do what they want and dont play them!!!!!!!!
A clean man can call every bad person out and be untouchable
blert, you haven’t told us how they can take him down…
it is nigh impossible… every bs trick they use and are used to is not available… did he take foreign money? cant its his own. did he do anything illegal or questionable? not in his career in public we know about and proably not at all… its the safe play for containing risk…
what can they get him on?
nothing
and THAT is the scariest thing to them
a person with a strong will, the public behind them, and absolutely nothing dirty you can use… since their positions are untennable, this leaves them with unloaded weapons they cant use.
Artfldgr:
I have no details or inside information on whether Trump has been “dirty” or “clean” in his business dealings, but I can tell you this much: the left has NO motivation to drag out any dirt on him now, before the nomination. It’s after he’s nominated (if in fact he’s nominated) that they will be motivated to air the dirty linen. Why on earth why they want to do it now, and harm his chances of nomination? I think they want the GOP to nominate him.
Art….
Trump has TONS of videoed utterances which are stacked up — waiting to be aired — once he’s the fall guy.
Republicans will be treated to a fellow that is entirely fine with 0-care. …. and a dozen other Left// Democrat positions.
Enough will be turned off to kill Trump’s turn-out… and seal the deal for Biden// Sanders.
[ Biden – Sanders is looking more likely than Biden – Warren ]
In the meantime, as neo posts, no dirt will be found until then.
They LOVE him because he’s a dead candidate talking.
And, of course, he will continue to utter gaff-tastic comments that will out Biden, Biden.
As I have repeatedly said: they will raise him and praise him — and then crush him.
Trump will have arrows all over his corpus.
Right now you can bet your last dollar that the MSM is looking for dirt to raise his negatives with White women. So far, they’ve been totally frustrated. Even his ex-wives are still in love with him. !!!!
A former Penthouse cover girl has declared Trump a man’s man, practically her hero.
Women, for good reason, judge a man by the women he keeps in his personal life.
The contrast between Donald Trump and Bill Clinton is epic.
And it’s showing up in the next generation of Trumps.
Some consideration.
Trump is not the american Corbyn. Corbyn is more extreme than the other candidates in the Labourist party. On the contrary, Trump is quite close to political center (up to the point he has been called a fake conservative).
That means: while Corbyn scares the hell out of any conservative, Trump could attract leftist votes. Republican voters would vote him anyway to avoid another Democrat president. He could be more of a winner than everyone think.
Yann:
One thing I won’t be doing is choosing Trump to be the nominee because he’s more electable 🙂 .
neo – There was an interesting (and entertaining) piece by Andy Kessler on Trump as a businessman in the WSJ a few days ago. I put up a post on it with one of those Google search-links, so you can go right to the op-ed from my post.
(It’s just two posts down, right now.)
Neo:
Nope. But you would vote for him in the General Elections in case he’s the final republican candidate, no matter you prefer other republican candidates right now.
However, and comparing with Corbyn case, many center-left labourists didn’t vote for him to be the candidate… neither will do for prime minister. Here lies the difference.
I really don’t think “what CNN wants” matters. Nobody watches them – unless they’re forced to at airports and gyms.
Things have changed. (To me, it’s creepy enough that Jake Tapper sounds just like CNNs own Anderson Cooper to me.)
I really don’t think “what CNN wants” matters.
The Leftist alliance is pulling the strings, not CNN. The Left’s org is much bigger and more resource funded than CNN ever could be.
Ymarsakar:
But CNN is part of the leftist alliance, either explicitly or by way of the “useful idiot” route.
Yes they are, I was responding to the comment that implied it was only CNN calling the shots here. That’s what it looks like, but that’s not what it is, for a debate, any debate or operation.
Certainly not for an operation in which the Left told Democrats to watch, and “get ready for it”.