ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts have largely failed to identify Trump prosecutors as Democrats, according to a new study by the Media Research Center.
The MRC conducted a study of ABC’s "World News Tonight," "NBC Nightly News" and "CBS Evening News" from January 1 to August 31 and found that networks rarely expressly identify prosecutors of the former president as Democrats or Democrat appointees.
The conservative-leaning MRC found the evening newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS spent 872 minutes covering former President Trump, with 751 of those minutes dedicated to his legal issues. The Florida documents case, the federal probe of Trump’s post-2020 election activities, the Manhattan "hush money" case and the Georgia election case all received significant air time.
"Yet even as these legal dramas dominate the political discourse, the networks have strained to present the prosecutors as non-partisan actors — even those who ran and won their offices as Democratic partisans," MRC analyst Rich Noyes wrote.
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The MRC found that 97.9% of stories failed to identify Special Counsel Jack Smith – who is a political Independent – as chosen by Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland, 93.3% of stories declined to identify Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis as a Democrat and 88.4% of stories ignored that Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg is a Democrat.
Media Research Center president Brent Bozell believes that information is purposely neglected.
"The networks’ deliberate omission of the political affiliations of President Donald Trump’s prosecutors exposes an enormous lack of objectivity in their news," Bozell told Fox News Digital. "By downplaying the partisanship of Trump's legal adversaries, the media are willfully concealing information from the American public."
When it comes to Smith, ABC’s "World News Tonight," "NBC Nightly News" and "CBS Evening News" have spent a combined 316 minutes covering his investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
"More than half of those -- 76, or 56% -- mentioned Smith by name or by his ‘special counsel’ title. Yet just seven of these stories -- 2.2% -- bothered to remind viewers that he was an appointee of a Democratic administration, and no reporter or nonpartisan expert presented this as a partisan conflict of interest," Noyes wrote, noting that only 50 of the 316 stories included comments from Trump or other Republicans that the prosecutor’s actions reflected a partisan pro-Biden agenda.
Smith was briefly an acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in 2017, after Trump took office and fired Obama-era U.S. Attorneys.
"This, of course, contrasts with the networks’ treatment of Clinton-era independent counsel Ken Starr. Upon Starr’s appointment by a panel of judges in August 1994, CBS’s Dan Rather suggested he could be regarded as ‘an ambitious Republican partisan backed by ideologically-motivated, anti-Clinton activists and judges from the Reagan, Bush, and Nixon years,’" Noyes added. "For five years, the media cast Starr as a partisan operative until he stepped down from the investigation in October 1999."
Smith indicted Trump on charges relating to the mishandling of classified documents. Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony charges out of that probe. Smith also indicted Trump on charges relating to events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in that case as well.
As for Bragg, the "hush money" case was mentioned or discussed during 128 segments on ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts but only 15 of them mentioned that the D.A. is a Democrat. All 15 were on "NBC Nightly News," as ABC and CBS completely ignored it, according to the study.
"Bragg, who ran and won office as a Democrat in 2021… During his campaign, Bragg frequently reminded voters how in an earlier case he had successfully sued the Trump Foundation," Noyes wrote.
Trump pleaded not guilty to charges related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet before the 2016 election about her claims that the two had a prior sexual encounter — a claim the former president has denied.
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Willis’ investigation of Trump has been covered 79 times cross the three networks, according to the study.
"Yet only five of these evening news stories -- just 6.3% -- told viewers that Willis is a Democrat. Once again, ABC and CBS refused to state this undisputed fact, while NBC included this essential information in only five of their 26 stories, or about a fifth of their coverage," Noyes wrote.
Trump pleaded not guilty to charges in his election interference case in Georgia last month.
The MRC also found that New York Attorney General Letitia James’ pursuit of a civil fraud case against the former president, along with his sons and the Trump Organization, has been covered six times and the liberal elected official was never identified as a Democrat.
ABC, NBC and CBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News' Hanna Panreck, Megan Myers and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
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