Media Research Center: TV Network News Coverage Biased Against Romney

A Media Research Center (MRC) analysis of ABC, CBS, and NBC news coverage of Mitt Romney’s overseas trip last month shows it was unfairly negative toward the Republican presidential candidate.

The networks’ bias against Romney contrasts sharply with their glowing coverage of President Barack Obama when he traveled overseas during his 2008 campaign.

The three networks focused on Romney’s alleged gaffes in 18 of 21 evening news stories about Romney's trip to London, Israel, and Poland, according to MRC. That’s 86 percent.

The first of the supposed mistakes was Romney saying security problems in the London Olympics weren’t "encouraging." That remark was so harmless that NBC left it out of the network’s original taped interview with the candidate. NBC and CBS went for the story only after the British tabloids made hay of it.

Four years ago, the networks ignored Obama’s false claim the he was a member of the Senate Banking Committee when he told reporters in Israel that “his” committee’s called for divestment in Iran, according to MRC.

But this time around Romney’s blunt warning against Iran in defense of Israel was called an “error” by the media.

The networks devoted 53 minutes to almost entirely negative coverage of Romney’s trip. During Obama’s 2008 journey, they offered 92 minutes of gushing coverage, according to MRC.

The group’s president Brent Bozell blasted the media for its double standard. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the media took this opportunity to thoroughly trash Obama’s rival, but the near unanimous negativity of their coverage is as outrageous as it is transparent,” he said in a statement.

“It’s impossible to look at the fawning coverage of Obama’s trip in 2008 compared to the sliming Romney has taken in 2012 and not see a clear agenda on the part of the liberal media.”