The Fox Primary By the Numbers, October 17 - 23

Last Wednesday on Fox, America's Newsroom co-host Martha MacCallum introduced Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul with a clip from a prior debate in which he outlined his economic plan for the country. But immediately after playing that clip, she didn't ask him for any additional details; instead, she asked, "So, how'd you think it went last night for you and just overall in terms of the tenor of the evening?"

And in a follow-up question, she only asked about the process of passing his ideas through Congress, rather than get to the substance of the economic issues at the heart of all this: "You know, I guess the biggest hurdle you would have is that the President, you know, sort of only has one say in this matter. How would you ever get all that through Congress?"

Fox News: breaking down the important issues for you.

So who's winning the Fox Primary? Each week at Media Matters, we watch the interviews, crunch the numbers, and tell you what Fox is up to in the presidential campaign.

Last Week's Results

Total time: 2 hours and 14 minutes; Total appearances: 18

Most Total Airtime on Fox:  Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum (28 minutes)

Most Total Appearances:  Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, and Rick Santorum (3 appearances each)

Fox Show with the Most Total Candidate Airtime: On the Record with Greta Van Susteren (31 minutes)

Fox Show with the Most Candidate Appearances: American's Newsroom and Fox & Friends (3 appearances each)

Longest Candidate Interview: Special Report with Bret Baier (15 minutes with Rick Santorum)

Softball Question(s) of the Week: During the October 19 episode of Freedom Watch, host Judge Napolitano had this exchange with Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson:

NAPOLITANO: You met with the crowd at Occupy Wall Street. You also met with some pagans and witches. Now, Governor Johnson, what was that all about?

JOHNSON: Well, that was about the notion that we should have freedom of religion. And by that, you know, do unto others as others would do unto you. These are people that follow that same fundamental belief.

NAPOLITANO: Are the pagans and witches libertarians?

JOHNSON: You know what, they're goodhearted individuals that really don't necessarily want to see religion in government.

NAPOLITANO: All right. They probably don't want to hear me say this, but God bless them, and thank you very much for joining us, Governor Johnson.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHNSON: God bless them.

NAPOLITANO: It's a pleasure.

(A table of the October 17 - 23 data is available here.)

The Numbers Since June 1

Total time: 51 hours and 16 minutes; Total appearances: 441

Most Total Airtime on Fox since June 1: Herman Cain (7 hours and 26 minutes)

Most Total Appearances since June 1: John Bolton (67 appearances)

Fox Show with the Most Total Candidate Airtime Since June 1: On the Record with Greta Van Susteren (8 hours and 27 minutes)

Fox Show with the Most Candidate Appearances since June 1: On the Record with Greta Van Susteren (66 appearances)

Longest Candidate Interview since June 1: Stossel (40 minutes with Gary Johnson)

(A table of all the data since June 1 is available here.)

Previous Fox Primary Reports

June 1 - 5
June 6 - 12
June 13 - 19
June 20 - 26
June 27 - July 4
July 5 - 10
July 11 - 17
July 18 - 24
July 25 - 31
August 1 - 7
August 8 - 14
August 15 - 21
August 22 - 28
August 29 - September 4
September 5 - 11
September 12 - 18
September 19 - 25
September 26 - October 2
October 3 - 9
October 10 - 16 

Methodology

Media Matters searched the Nexis database for all guest appearances on Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and Fox News Sunday for the 10 declared and potential presidential candidates in question: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Buddy Roemer, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum.

For programs where a transcript was unavailable, Media Matters reviewed the raw video.

Changes to the reports

Media Matters added McCotter to the data beginning on June 20 and Roemer beginning on July 21. We stopped including McCotter on September 22; he dropped out of the race that day.

We stopped including Pawlenty and Trump in the data beginning on August 14; Pawlenty dropped out of the race on that date. And while Trump stated that he would no longer seek the Republican nomination but may instead run as an independent (on June 1, the beginning of this report), we decided to drop him from the data on this date.

We stopped including Bolton in the data beginning on September 6; Bolton decided not to run on this date.

We stopped including Palin in the data after her decision not to run was made on October 5.

Giuliani announced on October 11 that he would not run, so he will not be included in future reports.