When the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down nearly 1,200 points on Monday, the three major network news outlets (ABC, CBS, and NBC) dedicated nearly 10 minutes of combined coverage to the drop when they began their evening broadcasts. 24 hours later, the market bounced back and closed with a 500-point rebound, but the networks spent roughly half as much time on the positive news.
On Monday, all three of the liberal networks covered the drop as their lead story with none of them giving it less than three minutes. ABC’s World News Tonight had a solid three minutes; CBS Evening News with three minutes and five seconds; NBC Nightly News devoted the most with a panicked three minutes, 40 seconds. The combined total was nine minutes and 45 seconds.
A common thread through all of their Dow plunge stories was an irritation at Trump for touting the stock market as a sign of his presidential success.
Tuesday’s market trading was like a roller coaster, but it closed on a notable 500-point upswing. But that positive turn around was not the networks’ top story of the evening. All three networks kicked off their evening newscasts with the impressive Space X launch of their Falcon Heavy rocket topped with a Tesla Roadster.
In all, the networks spent less than five minutes on the upswing collectively (four minutes and 58 seconds to be exact). CBS and NBC reported the Dow’s climb immediately following their launch coverage. And they both had a noticeable decrease in the time dedicated to the Dow: two minutes, 20 seconds and 2 minutes, 16 seconds respectively. ABC’s rebound coverage was the most shocking since it wasn’t brought up until much later in the program and was only talked about for 22 seconds.
The networks’ hyper-focus on the Dow’s market correction but not the rebound was a part of their trend of largely ignoring how well stocks and investments were doing in general. According to the Media Research Center study by Julia A. Seymour, the networks have censored 75 percent of the Dow’s record-breaking since the start of 2017.
