Megyn Kelly: Trump effect on ratings overshadowed journalistic duty

Source: The Guardian | 8 Apr 16 | The Guardian

Weeks after Donald Trump launched his candidacy with a controversial speech that singled out Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug traffickers, the New York real estate developer held a press conference at the southern border.

“It was fascinating TV,” Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly told journalist Katie Couric during an interview on Wednesday night at the Women in the World summit in Manhattan.

“We put it on the Kelly File at 9 o’clock and we watched it and it was the first sort of ‘Oh my god, I can’t take my eyes off of this. What’s he going to say next? There’s something so compelling about this.’ And we saw our numbers the next day and they had soared.”

Like many networks, Kelly and her team had discovered the Trump effect – and it was intoxicating. But in that early state of delirium, when networks began carrying blanket coverage of his press conferences and rallies, journalists missed an opportunity to challenge the candidate, Kelly said. Instead, she said, the news media helped fuel his rise.

“The media would sit there and say ‘it’s amazing how the polls are just up, up,.’ And it’s like, you’re putting your thumb on the scale,” she said of the relentless media coverage. “It’s not an anti-Trump thing. It’s just a responsibility as journalists thing.”

SNIP

A New York Times analysis calculated that the live-wire coverage of his campaign had earned Trump $1.9bn worth of “free media” over the course of his campaign, compared with $746m for Hillary Clinton and $313m for Ted Cruz.

In the last month, cable news networks have mentioned Donald Trump more than 110,636 times, according to the GDELT Project, which uses data from the Internet Archive’s Television News Archive. At a distant second, Hillary Clinton was mentioned 29,931 times by the same nine networks, and Ted Cruz, Trump’s Republican rival, was mentioned just 17,020 times.

 
 
 
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  • Discussion
  • ConstitutionalConservative #4048

    Just amazing how Cruz managed to not only keep up with Trump but beat him many times over, look at the disparity of those numbers it is surreal. All the odds continue to be against Cruz, I just heard Giuliani said he is going to vote for Trump April 19th and Kasuck is bent on focusing his meager efforts on diminishing Cruz’s momentum thinking he can beat Trump at a contested convention, the idiot refuses to recognize only Cruz can stop Trump from getting to 1237.

    Cruz relentlessly negotiates every obstacle designed to destroy him and he just drives on seemingly not effected by the onslaught of attacks. Personally I think God has his back and it is obvious Cruz believes that, there is no other way to explain consistently overcoming unprecedented 1.9 billion dollars in free media coverage Trump is getting compared the 313 million dollars worth of coverage Cruz has gotten which barely amounts to less than a single drop in the bucket.

    Seriously keep our Nation, Cruz and family bathed in prayer ultimately that is the only thing that can defeat that kind of money, filthy lucre as it were.

    Consistent #4082

    Ted Cruz and his team are on God’s side.

    Victoria #4088

    ConstitutionalConservative and Consistent, you Bible reading, wrong headed ultra right Bible thumpers , Cruz cult prayers, would get get those words thrown at you on the other website. I read on there just yesterday a thread about Cruz being a Christian, how he tries to daily live by his beliefs, and the Trumpcult, including the older timers there, were almost cursing, ok there was some cursing, hateful talk about being a Christian. That is not the FR I used to know. It was so bad, I couldn’t believe it was FR. Christianity is not welcome there anymore.

    Also yesterday, I posted on here a Trump guy saying he would not give to the Freepathon as long as Cruz threads were put on there and until 2ndDivisionVet and another Freeper were gone. His tag line was, “Not one cent to FR). He was NOT zotted. I kept going back to that thread to see is he ever got the zot, and he did not.

    rodamala #4110

    …you Bible reading, wrong headed ultra right Bible thumpers , Cruz cult prayers…

    Meanwhile, on FR…

    CA Surveyor #4121

    Megyn is not being honest.

    Trump was deliberately created and supported by the MSM, specifically to derail the looming Cruz juggernaut that the DNC saw coming.

    CA Surveyor #4123

    The majority of FR “Christians” are fakes.

    The “Easy Believer” cult, that believes that the same intellectual “belief” that Satan and his angels have is what saves; not the kind of “Walk as He walked” belief that John described in his first epistle.

    They will one day receive the message of Matthew 7:21-24 from Yeshua.

    There will be Gnashing of Teeth!

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