A 92% skew

The source is regrettably bombastic but the data, if accurate, is interesting. From Study: TV News Is Rigged Against Brett Kavanaugh by Rich Noyes. Well, not rigged per se, but certainly skewed.

I do not watch TV news (requires too much time for too little factual content) but this would seem to map to relative column inches in the press.

During the twelve days since Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein publicly announced the existence of an unspecified allegation against Brett Kavanaugh, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows have spent nearly six hours (344 minutes) regurgitating various unproved allegations against the Supreme Court nominee.

But only a tiny percentage of that coverage — a measly eight percent — has been devoted to Kavanaugh’s denials and the lack of corroboration for his accusers’ accounts.

MRC analysts pored over all of the coverage from September 13 through September 24. Most of the airtime (305 minutes) was spent on the allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford, which were the only known charges for most of this period. The charges leveled by Deborah Ramirez drew 37 minutes during the September 24 morning and evening news shows; an additional two minutes of airtime was spent on an unknown third accuser teased by Democratic lawyer Michael Avenatti.

Amid that sea of coverage, our analysts found the networks devoted a minuscule fraction on the key points that support the Supreme Court nominee’s case.

Given our due process (innocent till proven guilty) and the onus on the claimant (burden of proof) and the gossamer nature of the accusation (unknown date, unknown location, unknown participants, unknown corroborating details, unrevealed for more than three decades) and the unanimity of the repudiation (all named parties deny), perhaps it is reasonable that more time would be spent on the vestigial claims than on the concrete rebuttals and evidence. Perhaps; but it still feels like such a striking imbalance reflects more mainstream media prejudice and affirmative advocacy than it does dispassionate reporting.