Overwhelming Majority of Media Coverage of Inflation Doesn’t Mention Biden

The most severe policy disasters that the Biden administration has inflicted upon Americans is the rampant inflation over the past two years. Its devastating effects can be felt throughout the whole society. Yet a new study from the Media Research Center finds the overwhelming majority (84%) of TV news coverage of this inflation disaster failed to mention President Biden or his administration — and when reporters did discuss the President, they mostly depicted him as working to solve the problem, rather than blaming him for causing it.

For this report, MRC analysts examined NBC, CBS, and ABC evening news coverage on inflation between May 1, 2022, and January 31, 2023. This includes weekends. This time includes the most severe months of inflation, with the Consumer Price Index (or CPI) registering. In June 2022, the shocking figure was 9.1%The highest level since 1981, and gasoline prices exceeding $5/gallon in the country.

The distress of American consumers was the focus of all three evening newscasts, which aired a lot of airtime. NBC Nightly News devoted the longest (233 minutes) of the nine months to the story. The CBS Evening News was close behind, with 216 minutes of inflation coverage, while ABC’s World News Tonight Lagged for 93 minutes.

Combined, that’s a hefty 542 minutes of airtime, an average of about an hour every month since last spring. Virtually all of the networks’ full-length reports included multiple interviews with consumers angry about the high prices, plus families on tight budgets who were being financially crippled.

The July 14th is an example. CBS Evening News An Indiana family was reported as having experienced rising prices. “forced to take out high-interest loans just to afford the gas they need to take their daughter for lifesaving medical treatment” an hour’s drive from their home. These networks covered both the rising number of Americans looking for charity at food banks as prices soared and those who couldn’t afford rent as their rents soared.

However, networks seldom linked widespread misery to the President’s policies. Nearly 84 percent (or 454 minutes) of coverage that we surveyed did not include any mention of the Biden administration. Although there was plenty of coverage on consumers being affected by inflation, it was not as extensive as the scrutiny given to those responsible.

The 52 minutes that President Biden spent describing Biden as trying to solve the problem (88 minutes) were more than half. These “solutions” include Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to boost oil production; his short-lived proposal for a national gas tax holiday; and the passage of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” August

Thus, viewers heard reporters list the supposed inflation-fighting elements of the law, as ABC’s Cecilia Vega did on August 16: “Expanding subsidies to help 13 million Americans pay for insurance, and capping prescription drug prices for Medicare recipients at $2,000 a year.” Ali Vitali, a NBC reporter told viewers on August 8 that the law would assist average Americans. “top economists say this bill will put downward pressure on inflation.”

It’s not as if there were no critics of Biden’s policies. Biden was criticized by Republicans for a total of 8 minutes and 10 second. The October 16 CBS Weekend NewsDebra Alfarone, a correspondent, said it. “Republicans are pouncing on the price at the pump and blaming Democrats,” Before this soundbite is from GOP Representative Steve Scalise “They are talking and bragging as if gas prices are lower. Gas prices are about 60 percent higher today than when Joe Biden took office.”

The non-partisan sources included angry consumers, disgruntled voters and sometimes challenging comments from reporters. It was nearly the same amount of airtime (8 minutes, 5 second). NBC’s Kristen Welker on July 28 reminded viewers that the President “declared a year ago that inflation would be temporary.” She was shown facing Karine Jean Pierre, White House Press Secretary. “Why should Americans take his word for it now when the President got it wrong on the economy a year ago?”

Add all the criticism and you get 16 minutes, 15 second coverage over nine months. That’s not much out of 542 minutes of total coverage, and doesn’t even begin to match the 52 minutes of coverage presenting Biden’s as America’s inflation-fighter-in-chief.

Yet even experts you’d expect to be friendly to Biden blamed his monstrous $1.9 trillion spending spree dubbed the “American Rescue Plan.” The law included sending $1,400 checks to tens of millions of citizens on top of the lucrative handouts they’d received during 2020 under Trump.

Even before the bill became law, Democratic economists warned it would lead to exactly the type of inflation that we witnessed. The majority of media outlets did not report on the bill. championed the big-spending bill, CBS correspondent Ed O’Keefe on the February 5, 2021 Evening News offered a rare peek at responsible Democrats’ warnings: “Even Democrat Larry Summers, a former top economic adviser to President Obama, said the plan might overheat the economy and spark inflation.”

Sites like FiveThirtyEight.com were hardly conservative after the bill was passed. Accepted the connection: “There is also evidence that the stimulus, especially the last round, likely stoked higher and higher prices for the very people it was intended to help.”

The liberal site Vox Attained A similar conclusion six months later: “While many economists agree that the stimulus law did worsen inflation by giving people more money to spend, they continue to disagree about the extent.”

So exactly how much of the blame can be rested at Joe Biden’s feet? “Last month, consumer prices grew at a 7.5 percent annual rate — a new four-decade high. How much of the surge in prices is due to President Biden’s $1.9 trillion March stimulus, known as the American Rescue Plan? My answer: around three percentage points in 2021,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Strain, a right-of-center economist, Last February, concluded.

That is what it squares with A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Last March, about the effects of these stimulus checks “U.S. income transfers may have contributed to an increase in inflation of about 3 percentage points by the fourth quarter of 2021.”

Among experts, there’s little doubt about Biden’s role in fueling a significant amount of this high inflation, and the resulting hardship to tens of millions of American families. Yet the national news media are doing the President a huge political favor by mostly keeping his name, and his blame, out of their coverage of America’s epic inflation nightmare.