Fox News Under Fire For Undercovering The Women's March
Written by Brennan Suen
Published
Fox News is receiving criticism for its minimal coverage of the historic Women’s March on Washington and dozens of sister marches worldwide that brought together millions of people to stand up for human rights under the Donald Trump administration.
The New York Times reported that the Women’s March on Washington alone had “at least 470,000” attendees. Washington Post transportation reporter Faiz Siddiqui tweeted that January 21 was the “second-busiest day in metro history” for Washington D.C.’s public transportation system, with over one million trips taken. Across the country, one compilation of march attendance estimated participation of between 3.3 and 4.2 million people in various women’s marches, making it one of the largest manifestations of political activism in U.S. history:
Via UConn prof @djpressman, between 3.3 million to 4.2 million people marched today. Largest protests in US history https://t.co/DA6gR2QFs6 pic.twitter.com/O3PZ6O6Dim
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) January 22, 2017
Despite the historic nature of the event, however, Fox News dipped in and out of their coverage of the march while CNN and MSNBC covered it almost non-stop throughout the day. The Los Angeles Times’ Mary McNamara reported that minimal coverage on Fox compared to MSNBC and CNN “firmly reinstated” the “historical divide between Fox News and its compatriots.” McNamara continued that though Fox correspondent Jennifer Griffin “reported from the scene … it was a far cry from minute-by-minute analysis of a huge news event,” while also adding that Fox figures “questioned whether the crowd estimates were accurate” or whether liberals “refuse to accept reality.”
PolitiFact compared closed captioning transcripts of the three networks for terms “women,” “march,” and “Women’s March” and found large disparities between Fox and the other two cable news networks.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck pointed to CNN and MSNBC’s “daylong coverage of the protests” before stating that “the massive anti-Donald Trump demonstrations around the world may well be the start of a new political revolution, though you'd never know it if you were tuned into Fox News.” Scheck added that “Fox pretended that nothing special was going on” and that when the network did report on the march, “it was often in a smug, dismissive tone.”
On January 22, the day following the march, Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz offered a tepid admission his network had not given enough coverage to the marches, saying on his show MediaBuzz that “perhaps” Fox News “undercovered it.” Kurtz also suggested that a CNN headline about the marches sending a “message to Trump” was “overplaying what happened”:
HOWARD KURTZ (HOST): Yesterday CNN and MSNBC offered virtually nonstop coverage of a huge Women's March here in the nation's capital and in other major cities across the country. We're back with the panel. So while CNN and MSNBC were wall-to-wall, Fox kind of dipped in and out, perhaps undercovered it. I'd be interested to hear your view on that. CNN headline: “Women's marches across the U.S. send message to Trump.” Was that overplaying what happened? Was there a clear message?
JOE TRIPPI (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): I don't think it was overplaying it yesterday. I mean yesterday was pretty big. It was pretty big news. I think you can get into did they overcover and did Fox under, and probably both of those arguments are correct in my view. We should have probably done more.
Other critics of Fox’s coverage took to Twitter to point out the disparities between Fox, CNN, and MSNBC:
Everyone on the #WomensMarch except Fox who has a British muppet on instead pic.twitter.com/aQgjybJkDK
— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) January 21, 2017
Fox News has a live report from the DC march now -- but the network is devoting a lot less time than CNN and MSNBC. https://t.co/2ba9SzfbPp
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 21, 2017
Of course. RT Fox News was the only one that didn't carry live coverage of Women's March" https://t.co/lklfr4hpcO pic.twitter.com/buOe7bbHqc
— Greg Berlanti (@GBerlanti) January 22, 2017
Fox News just covered the women's march w/spotty signal shots from SF and Seattle, then interviewed a man on site, then called signs vulgar.
— Nathan Hubbard (@NathanCHubbard) January 22, 2017
Fox News is creating a false reality in which the Women's March does not exist but coherent thoughts in Trump's head do.
— John Levenstein (@johnlevenstein) January 21, 2017
Oh, *now* Fox News pays attention to the Women's March: https://t.co/PdGEEHjlk9
— Keith Caulfield (@keith_caulfield) January 21, 2017
Watched 30 minutes of Fox News just now. Fair to say it's treating women's march, cursorily, and as a curiosity.
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) January 21, 2017
Major media outlets have some great coverage of the Women's March ... and then there's Fox News https://t.co/ZI6k2M2bn3
— Daily Kos (@dailykos) January 21, 2017
Regardless of your political stance, acknowledging the largest march in inaugural history is newsworthy. Shame on Fox News for ignoring it.
— Jeff Cannata (@jeffcannata) January 21, 2017
Top seven stories on @nytimes right now all about #WomensMarch, no mention of event in top seven stories on @FoxNews.#TwoAmericas #uspoli pic.twitter.com/SwJjga8Shc
— Corey Hogan (@coreyhogan) January 21, 2017