MRC

Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center assessed all morning-show coverage on the Big Three from January 1 through July 31. In those 517 campaign segments, the networks offered nearly twice as many segments to Democrats as Republicans, a margin of 284 to 152. (Another 66 stories focused on both parties.) When the sample is narrowed down just to interviews with the candidates or their spouses and staffers, the morning shows gave out nearly three times as much free air time to Democrats (4 hours, 35 minutes) than they gave to Republicans (1 hour and 44 minutes).
ABC’s "Good Morning America" was the worst, with 119 segments on the Democrats to just 51 for the Republicans. And try this for impartiality, ABC-style: the network offered sprawling, positive "town hall" segments to only two presidential candidates so far this year: 38 minutes for John Edwards and 26 minutes for Hillary Clinton.
Hillary’s ABC town meeting was especially scripted, a platform so supportive that a former member of her 1993 health-care nationalization task force just happened to take the microphone to read to her a long softball question about whether she would boldly try, try again to blaze a trail to rescue the uninsured. Anchor Robin Roberts allowed Clinton to carry on (and on) uninterrupted for almost 18 of her 26 minutes with "the people." During some of these long soliloquies, the former First Lady urged viewers to look up her campaign web site. ABC somehow failed to put a toll-free 800 number for Hillary’s campaign on screen to develop the full infomercial effect.
All three Democratic frontrunners received more individual attention than any of the top Republican candidates, with Hillary unsurprisingly receiving the most coverage of anyone, at 61 adoring minutes. The leading Republican was former liberal media darling John McCain, who attracted 31 minutes of coverage, much of it assessing how his campaign was falling apart.
Even Al Gore, a man the morning anchors love so much that CBS’s Harry Smith begged him to put on a Gore for President button, drew 29 minutes on the morning shows this year, giving this unannounced candidate more attention than any announced GOP contender except for McCain.
Rudy Giuliani drew only 26 minutes, and Mitt Romney attracted even less, 19 minutes. Worse still, the Republican segments highlighted problems and controversies, like Romney’s Mormonism and Giuliani’s messy, fractious private life.
By comparison, the babble about Democrats was, and continues to be, embarrassingly giddy. Take ABC’s Claire Shipman describing Hillary and Barack as both "white hot," a diversity-enhanced clash of the titans. Hillary was an "unparalleled star," with a "hot factor" boosted by "her ever-popular husband." But wait, Obama, "with his fairy-tale family, has personal charisma to spare!" Someone needed to urge Shipman to come down off her puffy cloud of hype.