Media & Communication: Research Guide

Media Research Center (Original) MRC Original: If there’s one thing that stands out whenever Abdul El-Sayed is pressed about his radical positions, it’s his smile. His nearly perfect teeth, neatly trimmed beard and laid-back black hair rarely seem out of place, no matter how hard-hitting the question.As it turns out, El-Sayed has plenty to smile about: he is leading in the polls for the Democratic Party primary for a Senate seat in…

Before the originally scheduled 2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner was postponed after a failed assassination attempt against President Trump, there was opposition from liberal circles that the usual tradition of having a comedian perform was being replaced by mentalist Oz Pearlman. With the dinner being rescheduled for Friday, NewsBusters decided to investigate why these liberal critics were upset and found a noteworthy discrepancy in the WHCD’s comedy routines when a Republican is…

Google News propped up stories from Qatari-tied media outlet Al Jazeera in what has become a bit of a trend for the news aggregator. MRC Graphic The Media Research Center collected data that shows Google News promoted Al Jazeera stories 125% more from May to June. The increase in promotion on the tech giant’s pages correlated with Al Jazeera’s noticeable 6% jump in traffic from May to June when many of the most visited U.S. media…

The PBS News Hour marked its 50th anniversary last year (and the show’s first year deprived of taxpayer funding) with a clip package of its coverage of various historical events, while declaring the program had traditionally strove to be “even-handed to a fault.” If that were ever true, the current version of the show, co-anchored by Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz, certainly can’t make that claim.A new Media Research Center study tracked and labeled every…

Remarkably, it’s been a year since the infamous FBI letter about Jeffrey Epstein that triggered a torrent of TV news coverage ghoulishly seeking to tie President Trump to the billionaire sex criminal’s life of ruin. In that time, a Media Research Center analysis has found ABC, CBS, and NBC devoted a gargantuan 1,627 minutes across their flagship morning, evening, and Sunday morning political shows. Put another way, the “Big Three” have devoted an…

For the late night comedy shows, the first half of 2026 was defined by the final airing in May of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. But the political agenda of Colbert and his late night colleagues remained unchanged in January through June this year: No one expressing conservative views was ever granted a guest slot on a late night comedy showwhile 112 liberals were awarded guest appearances. This study looked at the five daily late night comedy shows: ABC’sJimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s…

The news media’s obsession with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting pool has continued apace. Earlier this week, we found that TV news had spent almost seven hours on the story in just the past nine days. As of Friday morning June 25, that total has reached almost ten hours across left-wing cable (CNN and MSNBC) and broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). MRC analysts looked at all reflecting pool coverage on major left-wing cable and broadcast networks from June 14 through the morning of June 26…

Thanks to the 24-hour news cycle, a nonsensical or unimportant story need only capture the attention of a few journalists in order for it to receive an absurdly disproportionate amount of coverage. Such is the case with the algae-riddled Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on TV news, which over the past week, has gobbled up nearly seven hours of airtime on liberal cable (CNN and MS NOW) and broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). MRC analysts looked at all reflecting pool coverage on major left…

On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement that claimed the alleged ringleader of the foiled terrorist attack on the UFC fight at the White House the previous Sunday is an illegal immigrant. Since then, ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight, NBC’s Nightly News and Today, and CBS’s Evening News and CBS Mornings have not disclosed this new information to the viewers of their morning and evening newscasts. By contrast, the networks have continued to obsess…

The American news media are covering up one of the most horrific cases of mass-sexual abuse and violence perpetrated against young girls in recent history. On Tuesday, an independent initiative in the UK, chaired by Reform MP Rupert Lowe, released a 219-page report documenting decades of rampant sexual abuse, torture, and trafficking perpetrated against as many as 250,000 underage British girls, primarily by Pakistani Muslims. The report details numerous cases of horrific gang rape and sexual…

Apple News played favorites when it covered the Republican primary elections held in several states in May, seizing on leftist media coverage to push an anti-Trump narrative. The news aggregator relied on 63% leftist media coverage compared to only 13% right-leaning coverage. By cherry-picking the most biased coverage against Trump-endorsed candidates and selecting five times as many leftist outlets to address the Republican primaries, Apple News was more of a campaign mouthpiece for the left…

On May 26, Vice President JD Vance announced that the Trump administration’s anti-fraud task force had recovered $160 billion in COVID-19 relief funds, student aid, and small-business loans. This is taxpayer money that was supposed to go to deserving recipients but instead went to scammers and con artists. Sadly but not unpredictably, this major announcement was not covered by any of the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) on their evening or morning news programs. Several high-profile…

The journalists appear to have lost their enthusiasm for exposing police brutality, if their attitude toward Henry Nowak is any indication. As of June 1, left-wing cable (CNN, MSNBC) and broadcast (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS) networks have completely ignored the gruesome murder and alleged police abuse of White British teenager Henry Nowak. MRC analysts looked through Nexis and SnapStream transcripts going back to December 4, 2025 for any mention of Nowak on any of the left-leaning cable or broadcast…

Three major outlets experienced sudden swings in their audiences this year—changes that align almost perfectly with how often they were promoted on some of the biggest news aggregators. Newsweek’s traffic plunged in April after steady promotion the month prior. Qatari-backed Al Jazeera saw its readership explode in March. And leftist outletThe Minnesota Star Tribunerode a steep wave upward in January before bottoming out again the next month. The timing was too consistent to ignore. Al…