When GOP Gains Look Certain, TV News Goes Quiet

"But in stark contrast to their enthusiastic coverage of the 2006 midterms, when Democrats made big gains, the Big Three broadcast evening newscasts are all but ignoring this year's campaign.

Media Research Center analysts counted every midterm election story on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from Sept. 1 through Oct. 23 in both 2006 (the midterm election in George W. Bush's second term) and 2014 (the equivalent election under President Barack Obama).

The results show that when Democrats were feeling good about their election prospects eight years ago, the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and ABC's World News aired a combined 177 campaign stories (99 full reports and another 78 stories that mentioned the campaign).

But during the same time period this year, those newscasts offered a paltry 27 stories (18 full reports and 9 mentions), a greater than 6-to-1 disparity."

[IBD]