STUDY: How the Networks Buried One Year of Biden’s Disasters, Failures and Controversies

Three network newscasts on the evening have attempted to cover Joe Biden’s failures in policy over the last year. They ignored the controversies surrounding Hunter Biden and extremist nominees chosen by President.

On the occasion of his first anniversary in office, MRC analysts looked at the most neglected Joe Biden stories in year one to see just how little broadcast network evening newscast coverage they got. These are the results: 

Hiding Hunter’s Scandals and His Sketchy Connections to Joe

During the 2020 presidential elections, the networks did everything they could to hide the evidence of Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings with Ukraine and any connection to Joe Biden. For the first year of Biden’s presidency, Hunter’s alarming art sales to unknown individuals and his dealings with China, they were all buried by the networks. 

From January 20 2021 to the present, ABC’s World News Tonight Allowed just 57 seconds for the multiple Hunter Biden scandals. You can read the entire article here CBS Evening News It was equally deplorable to be left for 60 seconds. NBC Nightly NewsA slightly faster 191 seconds was achieved. All totaled, that’s just 308 seconds, slightly higher than 5 minutes, in one year. 

Hunter’s last appearance on network night newscasts was on the July 12, 2012. NBC Nightly News. There, anchor Lester Holt chided the “secret art sale by President Biden’s son.” He warned, “The asking price? The price of a painting can reach half a million dollars. But ethics watchdogs are blasting the arrangement.” 

Yet, when five prints of the painting sold in October for $75,000 each ($375,000 total), NBC and the other corruptly ignored it. The painting was sold for $75,000 each ($375,000 total). New York Post explained: “It’s unclear who purchased the reproductions — which cost a fraction of the top price of $500,000 for an original piece by President Biden’s scandal-scarred son — or if any more were sold after the LA show opened.” 

Finally, in the last year, there were no mentions of Hunter allegedly using the N-word or of a second stolen laptop. (For additional information, please see the October 2021 study of Geoff Dickens, Director of Media Analysis at MRC.

Total World News Tonight coverage for year one of Joe Biden’s presidency: 5 seconds
Total CBS Evening News/Weekend News coverage for year one of Joe Biden’s presidency: 60 Seconds 
Total NBC Nightly News coverage for year one of Joe Biden’s presidency: 191 seconds 

Burying Biden’s Border Crisis

Although the 2021 southern border incident saw the largest number of migrants ever recorded, it broke multiple records. Even though the newscasts attempted to ignore the story, they did not allow more than a minute. CBS and ABC both allowed less than one minute each for December: 17 seconds. World News Tonight20 Seconds on the CBS Evening News. 

It NBC Nightly News The time was slightly faster, but still not impressive at 3 minutes 43 seconds. This combination of 260 seconds and November is shockingly better. However, any newscast would still be better than November’s because it featured zero minutes and zero second coverage.

Contrary to other stories, coverage of the border was much more intense than others. The border saw 173,283 incidents and 113 minute coverage in March 2021. This number fell to 44 minutes in April, and 26 minutes in May. It dropped to 4 minutes in July after a short spike in June (back up to 54 minutes), 

Keep in mind that many months when networks abandoned the border, were also periods of record-breaking numbers. July’s spike to 212,672 apprehensions is quite the contrast to four minutes of coverage.

Here’s the last six months of border crisis coverage (on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts). The spikes you see in September and Octubre are indicative of the continuing disaster, which was largely ignored by the networks. 

Total coverage for July: 4 minutes 20 seconds. August coverage total: 6 minutes 28 seconds. September total coverage: 54 mins and 10 sec. Total coverage for October: 17 minutes, 36 seconds. November total coverage: ZERO. December total coverage: 4 minutes, 20 seconds 

Radical Biden Nominees: The Media Did Not Make You Hear Of These Men 

During the 2020 presidential campaign, a compliant media sold Joe Biden as a “moderate.” Yet, in 2021, he nominated a slew of radical nominees to all sorts of positions. How did these shocking individuals’ positions get out? They didn’t. They simply censored their revelations. 

Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services Secretary is as extreme as it gets. As noted in August by The Federalist’s Kylee Zempel, he “refused to call for free and fair elections in Cuba after meeting with dictator Fidel Castro,” supports open borders, gun control, he sued the nuns of the Little Sister of the Poor while he was Attorney General in California. 

Becerra supports partial birth abortion and is radical in his views on abortion. He prosecuted pro-life activist David Daleiden. However, networks suppressed any suggestion of controversy about his nomination. The 18 March 2021 World News Tonight anchor David Muir offered this: “The Senate today confirming Xavier Becerra as secretary of Health and Human Services by a vote of 50-49.”  That’s it. 

The CBS and NBC evening newscasts covered the controversy-filled confirmation of Xavier Becerra.It takes 0 minutes to complete the task. 

Total coverage on the ABC evening newscasts for the controversial confirmation of Xavier Becerra:It took 0 minutes, 8 seconds. 

Saule Omarova, who was seeking to be Comptroller for the Currency (a Treasury Department branch), faced hearings. According to USA.gov, “The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks. It also supervises the federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.” It’s not some obscure, unimportant position.   

Yet, the fact that Omarova said of some oil and gas companies “We want them to go bankrupt,” the fact that she complimented the Soviet Union on Twitter, a regime that murdered millions, resulted in no coverage on the networks. Omarova eventually withdrew the nomination. 

Total ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts coverage of Saule Omarova’s nomination: 0 minutes, 0 seconds 

Is Tracy Stone-Manning an interesting name? Probably not because the networks don’t talk about the extremist director of the Bureau of Land Management. Although her nomination was in April, and she was confirmed in July by the Bureau for Land Management, evening news broadcasts covered her radicalism. An op-ed by the Arizona RepublicIn writing, former legislator Steve Pierce and Debbie Lesko discussed her support for population controls, her links to Earth First Organization, as well her accusations of being involved in eco-terrorism, tree spiking.

Lesko and Pierce concluded, “The U.S. Senate has an opportunity to ensure an extremist like Tracy Stone-Manning is not at the helm of an agency as important as the Bureau of Land Management..” 

Total coverage on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts for Stone-Manning’s nomination:It takes 0 minutes to complete the task. 

Afghanistan must be abandoned as soon as possible. 

Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021 spiraled into a disaster for the country, the world and for the President politically. The month was filled with disasters, from the Taliban taking control of cities after they had been seized, to the suicide bombing in which 13 military personnel were killed, and Americans trapped in an unstable country. Evening news news channels actually reported on the horror. However, what was the next step after August? 

The MRC analysts analyzed every evening newscast between August 1, 2021 and August 31, 2021. To see the speed at which the story vanished, they looked at identical broadcasts between October 1 2021 and October 31 2021. The stark contrast is evident between these periods which were separated by just a month. The networks were able to cover every aspect of the failed withdrawal in August. It took 409 minutes 12 seconds. That number fell to only 16 minutes and 22 second in October. 

That translated to 165 minutes 1 second for ABC, 124 mins 12 seconds for CBS, and 119 mins and 59 seconds for NBC in August. ABC’s October drop in viewership was the most dramatic, with a drop of 67 seconds. NBC ran 345 seconds while CBS ran 570 seconds. 

It’s not as though October lacked for newsworthy disasters in Afghanistan. Here’s just a few examples: By the end of that month, there were still hundreds of Americans stuck in the country. October saw young girls fighting to go to school under the Taliban’s rule. It was revealed that a U.S. drone strike in response to the murder of U.S. service members actually killed civilians and children instead. 

The 27th of October, NBC Nightly NewsAnchor Lester Holt only allowed 182 seconds for this chilling revelation 

New warning on the threat of terrorist attacks from Afghanistan Senior Pentagon officials claim that ISIS-K might be capable of attacking the U.S. again in six months, with U.S. forces now out of Afghanistan.

The network’s disinterest in Afghanistan is evident in October. CNN reports that 80 Americans remain in Afghanistan as of January 11, 2022. Are journalists from the three major networks concerned about the well-being of their citizens? 

New Years Resolution for ABC, CBS, and NBC: Afghanistan coverage and other Biden disasters. 

The total coverage by ABC, CBS, and NBC of Afghanistan’s evening newscasts in August is:409 Minutes and 12 Seconds 
All ABC, CBS, NBC and NBC night newscast coverage in Afghanistan for October3.45 seconds