patrick.net

Trump’s coverage during his first 100 days set a new standard for negativity. Findings include:

President Trump has received unsparing coverage for most weeks of his presidency, without a single major topic where coverage, on balance, was more positive than negative, setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president.
Every news outlet in the study was negative more often than positive.
Fox was the only news outlet that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall – though they did not – 52% of news reports on Fox were negative towards President Trump. Only 48% were positive. (There was variation in the tone of Fox’s coverage depending on the topic. Trade and terrorism were news categories where Fox’s coverage was starkly different from that of the other outlets. Whereas their coverage in these areas tipped strongly in the negative direction, Fox’s coverage tipped strongly positive. This just shows that those are two areas where Fox executives agree with Trump’s position. Thus the positive coverage.)

The study also divided news items across topics. On immigration, healthcare, and Russia, more than 85% of reports were negative. (Consider the fact that on illegal immigration, President Trump has broad public support in his effort to crack down on sanctuary cities.)

On the economy, news reports were still negative, but less negative than other topics – 54% negative to 46% positive. It should be difficult to publish negative stories about the economy when it is improving.