Fox News must have had a slow week following the Fourth of July weekend. The June 6 Fox and Friends interview with Michigan Representative Thad McCotter (who plays lead guitar for The Second Amendments rock band) provides an illustrative example, especially with such hard-hitting questions from host Gretchen Carlson as, “Who is your favorite guitarist?”
She added, “And this is a special question just 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: 59 minutes*; Total appearances: 12*
Most Total Airtime on Fox: Thad McCotter (11 minutes)*
Most Total Appearances: Thad McCotter (3 appearances)*
Fox Show with the Most Total Candidate Airtime: America's News Headquarters (16 minutes)
Fox Show with the Most Candidate Appearances: America's News Headquarters (3 appearances)*
Longest Candidate Interview: Hannity (9 minutes with Mitt Romney)*
Softball Question(s) of the Week: Host Steve Doocy sets up an easy attack avenue for Representative Michele Bachmann to go after President Barack Obama during a July 8 interview on Fox and Friends.
DOOCY: And the irony is, Congresswoman, when he was Senator, Barack Obama voted not to raise the debt limit. He has the same position that you do.
BACHMANN: Exactly. But as President of the United States, all he's done -- he passed his trillion-dollar, failed stimulus program. And from that, we found out last week that the average cost of a job was $278,000 for a government job under the stimulus. And even though the President's own numbers say, “Had the President done nothing,” we would have seen 288,000 created this week. Instead we're losing jobs. So clearly, the President's policy have failed. The unfortunate thing is the President isn't learning the failures that he's done for the last two and a half years. And by the way, this week the President said that he had another five and a half years to go on his term. I think the American people need to be consulted on that first. I don't think they see that.
(A table of the July 5 - 10 data is available here.)
The Numbers Since June 1
Total time: 17 hours and 2 minutes*; Total appearances: 129*
Most Total Airtime on Fox since June 1: Herman Cain (2 hours and 3 minutes)
Most Total Appearances since June 1: John Bolton (24 appearances)
Fox Show with the Most Total Candidate Airtime Since June 1: Hannity (3 hours and 1 minute)*
Fox Show with the Most Candidate Appearances since June 1: Fox and Friends (20 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
Methodology
Media Matters searched the Nexis database for appearances on Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and Fox News Sunday for the 15 declared and potential presidential candidates in question: Michele Bachmann, John Bolton, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Thad McCotter, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Donald Trump.
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.
*Correction: We have dropped all DeMint data from the report. During Laura Ingraham's June 14 show, DeMint told the conservative talk radio host that he is “not considering” a run for president in 2012. Media Matters regrets the error.