Broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC spent last week incensed by President Trump’s pardoning of Jan. 6 defendants, heaping over 46 minutes of coverage on the story within just a 48-hour period on their flagship morning and evening newscasts. By contrast, those same newscasts spared a pathetic three and a half minutes for the last-minute pardons former-President Biden issued for his family members.
MRC analysts looked at the 48-hour period following President Trump’s inauguration on ABC, CBS, and NBC, for a total of two evening newscasts and two morning shows per network from the evening of January 20 through the morning of January 22. We found a total of 46 minutes and 32 seconds of coverage were spent on Trump’s pardons — more than 15 times as much airtime as they gave to Biden’s pardoning of his own family members (just 212 seconds).
CBS was the most intensely interested in Trump’s lenience for the January 6 defendants, racking up a whopping 16 minutes and 32 seconds, or 15 times as airtime as was spent on Biden’s pardons. ABC was slightly behind CBS in total airtime (15 minutes and 30 seconds), but they were by far the most slanted, giving an absurd 27 times more coverage to Trump’s pardons than to Biden’s. NBC’s 14 minutes and 30 seconds of coverage for Trump’s pardons put them in last both as far as total coverage for Trump’s pardons, and in the degree by which this coverage outweighed their discussion of Biden’s pardons (just over 7 times as much).
Despite Trump not even having issued those pardons by the time the evening newscasts aired on January 20, the possibility of his doing so was enough to beat out the airtime that Biden’s pardons received on both ABC and NBC that evening. On NBC, Trump’s then-rumored pardons received just shy of a minute (55 seconds), while Biden’s pardons got 40 seconds. Over on ABC, the split was 46 seconds for Trump and 34 seconds for Biden.
Most alarmingly, those 34 seconds represent the entirety of the coverage that Biden’s pardons for his family members received on ABC during those first 48 hours.
On January 23, President Trump said during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that the January 6 defendants had been “treated so badly, they were treated like the worst criminals in history.” He added, “They were protesting the vote. You should be allowed to protest a vote.”
