MSNBC Devoted The Most Airtime To Debunking Birthers

[sasha031]

According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, MSNBC devoted the most airtime to debunking the Obama birther conspiracy last week. MSNBC’s devoted more airtime to the story than any other cable network, and spent more time debunking the story than their cable news competition.

Here are the numbers from PEJ via the Poynter Institute’s Julie Moos:

MSNBC

Including “The Ed Show,” “Hardball,” “The Last Word,” and “The Rachel Maddow Show”

28% of airtime studied was devoted to the 2012 election
10% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama
A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 92% of the Obama coverage

Fox

Including “Special Report w/Bret Baier,” “Fox Report w/Shepard Smith,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Hannity”

16% of airtime studied was devoted to 2012 election
5% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama
A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 8% of the Obama coverage

CNN
Including “The Situation Room,” “John King, USA,” “In The Arena,” and “Anderson Cooper 360″

11% of airtime studied was devoted to 2012 election
5% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama
A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 100% of the Obama coverage.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/msnbc-debunk-birthers


:applause:

[RobertSeattle]

1. Thanks

Another telling stat from MM is how Fox News could "care less" about the Birther issue back in 2008 but it became hot for them in 2010/2011.