Donald Trump has been busy campaigning lately, including rallies in states important to the balance of power in the Senate. Fox News has been right there for every minute of Trump demagoguery, with free air time valued at more than $13 million.
Media Matters did the number crunching:
Trump started holding “MAGA” campaign-style rallies after he announced in February that he’s running for re-election in 2020, in addition to attending those in support of other candidates. In the past two months, he’s held rallies in Michigan, Indiana, Tennessee, Minnesota, South Carolina, and North Dakota. Trump’s speeches at these events are riddled with lies, name calling, and media bashing.
Nevertheless, Fox has aired every single rally in its entirety for a total of 6 hours, 33 minutes, and 20 seconds of live coverage. MSNBC aired portions of Trump’s April 28 Michigan rally live for a total of 8 minutes and 13 seconds, but since then, the network has essentially ignored Trump’s rallies. CNN hasn’t aired any live footage of Trump’s rally speeches, but hosts frequently acknowledge the rallies when they are occurring, noting they’re “monitoring” them for news. CNN also frequently sends correspondent Jim Acosta to report live from the rallies. Recently, a Fox News on-screen graphic during a Trump rally called out the network’s cable rivals for not airing the president’s speech.
It just so happens that in two of the states Trump has held rallies in, Indiana and North Dakota, Democratic senators are vulnerable. In a third state, Tennessee, a Democratic candidate has been doing surprisingly well in the senate race. So Fox has also gifted the GOP along with Trump.
The advertising value of free airtime given to Trump was worth $13,271,887.35, Media Matters estimated. It’s all but a guarantee that Trump will get millions more in advertising values for his rallies this year given that there are still four months to go before the 2018 midterms. And that’s not counting the value of hours of fawning coverage on Fox’s opinion shows.
CNN’s Hadas Gold was probably referring to former FNC co-president Bill Shine becoming White House communications director when she tweeted recently that Fox and the Trump administration had almost completely melded. The prodigious airtime for Trump rallies provided by the network just further proves her point.
The melding of Fox News and the White House is nearly complete.
— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) June 27, 2018
(Trump caricature by DonkeyHotey via his Flickr photostream under Creative Commons license. The caricature was adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo by Gage Skidmore's Flickr photostream.)