The approximate ratio of Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders corporate media think you need in your campaign coverage. (Trump photo: Gage Skidmore)
The two big surprises of the 2016 presidential race so far have been Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Two dark horse candidates opposed by party insiders, each began a substantial surge in campaign polls around the beginning of July. Between July 1 and August 31, in Real Clear Politics’ average of polls, Sanders went from 13 percent to 26 percent, while Trump went from 6 percent to 26 percent.
Yet as these surges were happening, corporate media showed a fascination with just one of these characters. Was it the self-described socialist senator from Vermont, who has focused his campaign on combating the US’s rising inequality? Or was it the billionaire real-estate developer who blames America’s economic troubles on foreigners and calls for massive deportations?
Unsurprisingly, corporate media seem to be mainly interested in Cinderella stories when they don’t question the wealth of the class that owns and advertises in media outlets.
We used the Nexis database to see how often various news outlets had mentioned Sanders and Trump between July 1 and August 31. The biggest gap we found was in the medium that reaches the most voters: broadcast network TV. On average, ABC, CBS and NBC named Sanders in their news stories 19 percent as often as they named Trump—roughly one story that included the senator for every five with the developer.
Leading newspapers—the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times and USA Today—ran three times as many Trump stories as Sanders stories: Sanders was mentioned 33 percent as often as Trump in these papers. (The Journal’s articles are available as abstracts, not full text, on Nexis.) The New York Times had the highest ratio of Sanders to Trump mentions, at 47 percent; the Journal had the lowest, with 20 percent. 
All the cable news channels talked about Trump more often than Sanders—even MSNBC, which often caters to a progressive audience. MSNBC did come closest to parity of any outlet we looked at, however, with 69 percent as many Sanders as Trump stories. Fox News also had relatively frequent references to Sanders, 56 percent as many as its Trump references. CNN was the most Trump-heavy of the cable networks, mentioning Sanders only 37 percent as often. Overall, cable news on average referred to Sanders 54 percent as often as Trump.
Public broadcasting didn’t pay more attention to Sanders than did for-profit cable. Sanders came up 44 percent as often as Trump on NPR, and 55 percent as frequently on PBS NewsHour—averaging 50 percent.
Overall, the 13 outlets we surveyed typically had 37 percent as many references to Sanders as to Trump. While these candidates are backed by roughly as many voters in their own parties, among the general public Sanders is far more popular; in recent polls, 59 percent express a negative opinion of Trump, with about half as many liking him, whereas Sanders is one of the rare politicians who is viewed more often favorably than unfavorably. On the rare occasions when pollsters match up Republican hopefuls with anyone besides Hillary Clinton, Sanders tends to trump Trump.
So why did news outlets think voters needed to hear about Trump about three times as often as they heard about Sanders?
Research assistance: Michael Tkaczevski and Gunar Olsen
