CNN and MSNBC aired hours more coverage of the ongoing battery lawsuit against former President Donald Trump during the trial than Fox News, which barely discussed the ongoing legal battle involving the current GOP presidential frontrunner.

E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, is suing Trump for battery and defamation, alleging that he raped her in 1996. The lawsuit is not the first time that Trump has been accused of assault and harassment, with a 2019 book including “43 allegations of inappropriate behavior” by Trump. 

From April 24, the day before the trial began, through May 2, Fox News aired just 13 minutes of coverage, significantly less than CNN’s 4 hours and 50 minutes and MSNBC’s 8 hours and 26 minutes. Fox’s coverage was mostly limited to brief headline reports which provided surface level information on the case.

Fox News has long ignored Trump’s scandals, recently only dedicating three minutes to a House report detailing issues with Trump’s tax returns, and neglecting to cover the Trump Organization’s multiple convictions for tax fraud.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the Snapstream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for either of the terms “Trump” or “E. Jean Carroll” or any misspelling of the term “Carroll” within close proximity of any of the terms “assault,” “rape,” “battery,” “trial,” or “mistrial,” or any variation of any of the terms “sex,” “defame,” or “allege” from April 24, 2023, the day before the trial began, through May 2, 2023.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when either E. Jean Carroll’s  sexual assault case against former President Donald Trump was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the case. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the case with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker mentioned the case in a segment about another topic without another speaker engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the case scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.