One week before Election Day, a new analysis from the Media Research Center finds that broadcast evening news coverage of the 2024 presidential race has been the most lopsided in history. Since July, ABC, CBS and NBC have treated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to 78 percent positive coverage, while these same networks have pummeled former Republican President Donald Trump with 85 percent negative coverage. (See Methodology explanation at the end of this post.) The difference in coverage between the two candidates is far greater than in 2016, when both Trump and then-challenger Hillary Clinton received mostly negative coverage (91% negative for Trump, vs. 79% negative for Clinton). It’s even greater than in 2020, when Joe Biden was treated to 66 percent positive coverage, vs. 92 percent negative for Trump. The main reason for the imbalance: Since July, the Big Three have swamped their audiences with more than 230 minutes of airtime — virtually all of it negative — about an array of personal controversies surrounding the former President, yet provided extremely light coverage or altogether ignored many controversies involving Vice President Harris. Instead, Harris’s coverage has been larded with enthusiastic quotes from pro-Harris voters, creating a positive “vibe” for the Democrat even as network reporters criticize Trump themselves. For this report, MRC analysts reviewed all 660 stories about the presidential campaign that aired on the ABC, CBS or NBC evening newscasts from July 21 (the day President Biden ended his candidacy) through October 25, including weekends. Total coverage added up to 24 hours, 15 minutes, almost evenly divided among the three networks: 8 hours, 20 minutes on NBC; 8 hours, 13 minutes on CBS; and 7 hours, 42 minutes on ABC). Details: ■ Zeroing in on Trump: Three months ago, the networks seemingly couldn’t get enough of Kamala Harris, giving her rock-star coverage after she succeeded President Biden as the 2024 Democratic nominee. But following the September 10 presidential debate, the networks shifted attention away from Harris, spending significantly more airtime targeting Trump. From the date Harris entered the race on July 21 through September 10, she received 353 minutes of network evening news coverage, virtually identical to the 355 minutes given Trump during the same period. Since then, however, TV has focused nearly twice as much attention on Trump as Harris: 398 minutes for the former President, compared to just 230 minutes for the Vice President. The additional airtime for Trump was hardly meant as a gift. Instead, it reflected the networks’ intensive focus on Trump controversies, providing opportunities for negative news coverage. ■ Flooding the zone with Trump controversies: Much as they did in 2016, 2020, and throughout his presidency, the networks anointed themselves as the Trump Police, scolding and correcting the former President whenever they decided he’d crossed one of their lines. Of the 753 minutes of evening news airtime devoted to Trump since July 21, nearly one-third (230 minutes, or 31%) has been about personal controversies. This compares to barely five percent of Harris’s airtime (28 minutes, out of a total 583 minutes of coverage) spent on similar topics. The list of top controversies reflects liberals’ main talking points against Trump. Garnering the most airtime: the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, including Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election was rigged (47 minutes). Another 30 minutes was spent amplifying claims that Trump is a “danger to democracy” and/or a “fascist” who would use the military to persecute his opponents. The Big Three spent 18 minutes criticizing Trump for disseminating supposed misinformation about the Biden administration’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton; 15 minutes pounding Trump for saying some immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets; plus an additional 13 minutes floating concerns about Trump’s age and fitness for another term as President. On each one of these topics, the networks hammered Trump with coverage ranging from 97 to 100 percent negative. Harris faced no such onslaught. Over fourteen weeks, evening news viewers heard a scant 5 minutes, 22 seconds of GOP criticisms that she’s too liberal, barely one-sixth the airtime spent on the claim Trump is a “fascist.” None of this coverage included any criticisms of Harris from either network reporters or nonpartisan sources. In July and August, the networks spent 7 minutes, 8 seconds thrilling over the prospect that Harris would make history as the first woman President. But in October, as polls began to trend in Trump’s direction, the networks spent 3 minutes, 5 seconds worrying that voters might be reluctant to choose Harris because of her gender. Some anti-Harris topics have been completely ignored. MRC’s Geoffrey Dickens detailed five stories — including questions about whether portions of Harris’s 2009 book were plagiarized, her continued advocacy for taxpayer funding for sex reassignment surgery for prison inmates, and the story that her husband, Doug Emhoff, may have hit his girlfriend in the face while in France in 2012. None have been mentioned on any of the Big Three evening newscasts during our study period. ■ Both candidates hit with bad press on policy: There’s one way in which the networks are being relatively even-handed — when it comes to their policies, both Harris and Trump have received mostly negative coverage. Adding up all of the evaluative statements about policy, Trump’s coverage was 63% negative vs. 37% positive. That’s not terribly different from the 54% negative, 46% positive coverage for Harris on the issues — a perhaps surprising bit of balance amid coverage that has otherwise been ridiculously lopsided against the Republicans. Three issues received the most coverage: immigration (100 minutes); the economy (87 minutes) and abortion (44 minutes). On the economy, Trump’s coverage was actually slightly positive (55%, vs. 45% negative), vs. 55% negative for Harris. “I would like to see a president that really supports employees,” one Trump voter explained on the October 4 CBS Evening News. On the August 16 NBC Nightly News, another voter blamed Harris (and Biden) for high prices. “Our food costs here are incredibly high,” he complained. On immigration, we tallied eight negative comments about Harris’s handling of the issue, vs. just one positive comment, for an 89% negative spin. As for Trump, the coverage included eleven positive comments vs. 26 negative comments — 70% negative coverage, but three times as many individual negative statements as for Harris, as the media presented Trump’s rhetoric as more controversial than the Vice President’s actual job performance. The other major issue, abortion and IVF. Here, the networks awarded Harris the best press (73% positive), while trashing Trump (92% negative). “She speaks so eloquently about reproductive freedom,” one voter enthused on the August 24 Nightly News. Another quickly chimed in: “It makes me want to work harder, because she is.” ■ Delighted by Harris, Deploring Trump: Most of the evaluative statements network news viewers heard about the Vice President weren’t about any specific policy or controversy, and nearly all of these general evaluations (90%) were positive, celebrating the candidate without regard for what she would do as president. “Having someone who looks like you, who has the same values as you, on the ticket, is exciting,” one college student proclaimed on the September 12 NBC Nightly News. “I haven’t felt this kind of excitement since Obama,” a voter proclaimed on the August 10 CBS Weekend News. Another fan of Harris popped up on the August 18 World News Tonight: “We’re so excited about the Harris/Walz ticket and the hope and the joy.” While the networks often used voters to relay positive sentiments about Harris, they had no problem condemning Trump themselves. “Former President Trump and some of his allies keep pushing false claims,” declared NBC correspondent Gabe Gutierrez on October 8. “In a town hall aimed at courting women last night, Trump made numerous false and strange statements,” CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell charged on October 16. Add it all up, and the media coverage of the past three months is more lopsided than that of any presidential election in the modern media age. This month, Gallup reported that only a meager 31% of Americans — and just 12% of Republicans — said they had either “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the media’s ability to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.” So if Donald Trump regains the White House next week, the media’s campaign against him will have accomplished nothing, except the further erosion of their own reputations.                          +++++ METHODOLOGY: To determine the spin of news coverage, our analysts tallied all explicitly evaluative statements about each candidate from either reporters, anchors or non-partisan sources such as experts or voters. Evaluations from partisan sources, as well as neutral statements, were not included. As we did in 2016 and 2020, we separated personal evaluations of each candidate from statements about their prospects in the campaign horse race (i.e., standings in the polls, chances to win, etc.). While such comments can have an effect on voters (creating a bandwagon effect for those seen as winning, or demoralizing the supports of those portrayed as losing), they are not “good press” or “bad press” as understood by media scholars as far back as Michael Robinson’s groundbreaking research on the 1980 presidential campaign.

As Kamala Harris continues to embarrass herself in each new interview, especially her recent one with Bret Baier on Fox News, it’s time to seriously consider the possibility that Donald Trump could win this presidential election.At any other time in history, this might be a reason to celebrate, make peace with political opponents, and look forward to better days. Unfortunately, the stakes in this election, along with the intense hostility, give conservatives good reason to fear what could happen if Trump wins. As the old Chinese curse goes, “May you get what you wish for.”A Harris loss would show that most Americans finally understand the status quo no longer serves them and that reform is urgent.Commenting on Harris’ repeated claims that Trump poses an existential threat and will round up and imprison American citizens, John Daniel Davidson, a senior editor at the Federalist, argued that the primary goal of this rhetoric is to prepare Democrat voters for violent resistance if Trump wins in November. If it also scares more people into voting for her or motivates a few would-be assassins to target Trump, that’s just a bonus. But the real aim is to incite riots across the country, like those in the summer of 2020 — only worse.Taking a slightly more optimistic view, political commentator Mark Halperin predicts that America could experience “the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country.” According to Halperin, leftist propaganda has become so strong and pervasive that a Trump victory would completely shatter many people’s reality: “I think tens of millions of people will question their connection to the nation, their connection to other human beings, and their vision of what their future, and their children’s future, could be.”But a Trump victory may not trigger a national crisis. While both Davidson and Halperin correctly assess the damage leftist gaslighting has done to the mental and emotional state of many Americans, cataclysmic mass tantrums likely won’t follow. Some influencers and pundits will express outrage, but widespread violence in the streets seems unlikely.Instead, a Trump victory would highlight what many are beginning to notice: Today’s leftism is spent and in decline.Despite its traditional claim of championing the “rights of the people,” leftism no longer functions as a populist movement. In reality, it has become a collective effort by elites to maintain their power by preserving a system that keeps them rich and in control. Leftism now entails opposing free speech, opening the border, undermining and dismantling cultural institutions, overturning the constitutional order, and pouring vast amounts of money into ineffective programs.This shift explains why so many union workers, black men, Latinos, and tech bros — once key constituents in the Democratic coalition — are drifting away. Behind the talk of diversity, social justice, and equity lies an agenda that will leave them poorer, less free, less safe, and ultimately less influential. Even if some still vote for Harris out of habit, they are not going to burn the country down or wage civil war against Trump supporters if she loses. Nor will they scream helplessly at the sky. They have no reason to do so.As Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” The current system of endless borrowing, taxing, and printing money to fund corrupt regimes, bloated government departments, massive corporate contracts, and entitlements for millions of illegal immigrants is unsustainable. This is why crime is rising, infrastructure is crumbling, and the federal government lacks funds to help victims of devastating hurricanes.This unsustainability explains why Harris cannot articulate a coherent agenda. It’s not just that she’s incompetent and radical but also that she lacks the resources to deliver on any new promises. Everyone knows a Harris administration would lead to higher taxes, mass amnesty, a crackdown on free speech, more inflation, and the creation of a police state to crush dissent. She has no other options.A Harris loss in November would make this reality clear. It would show that most Americans finally understand the status quo no longer serves them and that reform is urgent. A small minority of elites and their paid agitators might try to raise hell, but their efforts would be futile.Look at Argentina after the flamboyant libertarian Javier Milei won the presidential election last year. The fact that he won and delivered on his promises reveals how little influence leftists actually have. Milei took a country deeply in debt, plagued by extreme inflation, and burdened with a bloated government — much like the United States — and, according to writer Joseph Addington, “arrested a catastrophic inflationary spiral, drastically slashed government spending to produce a budgetary surplus for the first time in decades, and completely restructured the Argentine economy and government.”The same could happen here. Most Americans are well past the point of fussing over Trump’s tweets, his character flaws, or his involvement in the January 6 protests. They know he is not a fascist because he already served one term as president and did a much better job than the administration trying to stay in power. And in their heart of hearts, even most leftists probably know this and will feel inwardly relieved at Trump’s return — even as they make a show of shedding some crocodile tears in November for the sake of form.

As we build up to the imminent launch of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, a newly leaked image of the upcoming gaming CPU shows it shorn of its heatspreader, exposing the silicon chips below. This AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D delid picture in turn hints at a key reason why this CPU is expected to run at higher clock speeds than previous X3D models. With the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D already expected to be the best gaming CPU around when it launches, there are several reasons why it has such a weight of expectation, including it being based on AMD's latest 9000-series architecture and including an extra stack of L3 cache. However, it could be a new arrangement of its 3D V-Cache that tips it over into truly chart-topping territory. Continue reading New AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D pictures hint at secret to higher clock speeds MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Ryzen 7 7800X3D review, Best gaming CPU, Radeon RX 7800 XT review

There are a lot of Escape From Tarkov challengers right now. The tactical FPS genre is filled with the likes of Gray Zone Warfare, Delta Force, and Arena Breakout Infinite. Each game wants to offer you something a little different, and ABI itself has had some positive feedback so far. Apart from the common player complaint that paid items give those with deep pockets an advantage, it's a robust shooter with tense combat. It's about to get even better soon, too, as developer MoreFun Studios has finally outlined what we can expect in Season One. Continue reading Tarkov rival Arena Breakout Infinite is about to vastly expand with season one MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best FPS games, Best multiplayer games, Best simulation games

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