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Study: Trump officials appeared on Fox News over 5 times more often than on CNN and MSNBC combined

Four months of guests on cable news 

Between August 7 and December 8, Media Matters tracked all weekday guest appearances on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Administration officials, Trump’s family, and Trump’s personal lawyer appeared on Fox News five times more often than on CNN and MSNBC combined.

  • In this study:

    • Prominent Trump administration officials and advocates (the president, his cabinet and administration, his family, and his personal lawyer) appeared 135 times on weekday Fox News programming yet appeared only 19 and seven times on CNN and MSNBC, respectively.
    • More than half of the guest appearances by those Trump officials and advocates on Fox were concentrated on Fox & Friends and Hannity. Trump-linked guests appeared on each of those two shows more than on both MSNBC and CNN combined.
    • 91 percent of elected congressional and gubernatorial officials who appeared on Fox were Republican.
    • MSNBC and CNN hosted congressional Democrats and Democratic governors over Republicans nearly 4-to-1 and 3-to-1, respectively.

    Media Matters collected all weekday guest appearances on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC from August 7 to December 8, 2017. In those four months, Media Matters catalogued all guests who appeared on the three major cable news networks -- CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC -- during the networks’ weekday schedules from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. We recorded persons who appeared in interviews or as a part of a panel in the study. We counted each such person once per show each weekday, which constituted a “guest appearance.” Persons in pre-recorded clips were not counted as guest appearances, but persons in pre-recorded interviews airing for the first time were counted. Guest appearances were counted on only their first airing; subsequent airings of prior interviews or panels were not counted. Network correspondents providing updates to ongoing stories or filing pre-recorded news packages were not counted as guest appearances.

    Administration officials, Trump’s family, and Trump’s personal lawyer continued their preference for Fox News

    Fox News hosted prominent Trump-linked guests 135 times. Between August 7 and December 8, Trump-linked guests appeared overwhelmingly on Fox as opposed to CNN or MSNBC. Out of 161 total appearances, 135 were on Fox while just 19 were on CNN and only seven were on MSNBC. 84 percent of all Trump-linked guest appearances were on Fox News.

    Sarah Wasko / Media Matters
    Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

    White House counselor Kellyanne Conway was the most frequent Trump-linked guest. Conway appeared on weekday cable news 43 times between August 7 and December 8. The next most frequent guests were Mick Mulvaney, director of Office of Management and Budget and Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal lawyer, at a distant second with 14 appearances each. Thirty-nine of Conway's 43 appearances were on Fox.

    Sarah Wasko / Media Matters
    Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

    Fox & Friends and Hannity hosted the most Trump-linked guests. In the time period studied, Fox & Friends hosted Trump-linked guests 49 times, and Hannity hosted them 27 times. Conway was the most frequent Trump-linked guest on Fox & Friends with 16 appearances while Sekulow was the most frequent Trump-linked guest on Hannity with 11 appearances. Both Hannity and Fox & Friends hosted more Trump-linked guests than all of CNN and MSNBC combined. During a December 21 appearance on Fox & Friends, Conway thanked the hosts for helping “get our message out here” and said she and the White House “appreciate the platform.” [Media Matters, 12/21/17]

    Sarah Wasko / Media Matters
    Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

    Cable news: Lots of journalists and pundits talking to other journalists and pundits

    The top 10 guests on each network were dominated by journalists and paid network contributors. CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger was the network’s most frequent guest (Chris Cillizza, former Washington Post reporter who was hired by the network in March, was the second most-popular guest). Robert Costa, Washington Post national political reporter and MSNBC political analyst, was MSNBC’s most frequent guest, and Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano was Fox’s top guest.

    Top 10 CNN guests
    Appearances

    Borger, Gloria
    179

    Cillizza, Chris
    171

    Toobin, Jeffrey
    138

    Chalian, David
    113

    Kirby, John
    113

    Bash, Dana
    109

    Mudd, Philip
    108

    Preston, Mark
    106

    Henderson, Nia-Malika
    81

    Berg, Rebecca
    80

    Top 10 Fox News guests
    Appearances

    Napolitano, Andrew
    95

    Stirewalt, Chris
    78

    Hurt, Charles
    66

    Chaffetz, Jason
    66

    Bolton, John
    55

    Rove, Karl
    55

    York, Byron
    53

    Waltz, Michael
    53

    Gingrich, Newt
    52

    Tarlov, Jessica
    52

    Keane, Jack
    52

    Top 10 MSNBC guests
    Appearances

    Costa, Robert
    80

    Steele, Michael
    79

    Confessore, Nicholas
    68

    Przybyla, Heidi
    67

    Robinson, Eugene
    67

    Miller, Matthew
    66

    Dilanian, Ken
    65

    Rucker, Philip
    64

    Jordan, Elise
    63

    Alcindor, Yamiche
    63

    Congressional and gubernatorial guests were divided along partisan lines between networks

    On Fox News, congressional Republicans and Republican governors dominated. For all congressional and gubernatorial guests on Fox, Republicans held a more than 9-to-1 appearance advantage over Democrats. On the flip side, such Democratic officials were hosted more often than their Republican counterparts on MSNBC and CNN -- 72 percent to 28 percent and 62 percent to 38 percent, respectively.

    Sarah Wasko / Media Matters
    Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

    The top 10 Democrats appeared on cable news more often than their Republican counterparts. The top 10 congressional Democrats and Democratic governors together made 417 appearances across all three cable networks while such Republicans only appeared a total of 288 times. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was the top elected Democratic guest with 65 appearances. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) was the top elected Republican with 49 appearances.

    Top 10 Democratic guests
    Profession
    Appearances

    Swalwell, Eric
    Representative, California
    65

    Blumenthal, Richard
    Senator, Connecticut
    54

    Schiff, Adam
    Representative, California
    47

    Coons, Chris
    Senator, Delaware
    42

    Rossello, Ricardo
    Governor, Puerto Rico
    41

    Speier, Jackie
    Representative, California
    39

    Cardin, Ben
    Senator, Maryland
    33

    Himes, Jim
    Representative, Connecticut
    28

    Murphy, Chris
    Representative, Connecticut
    24

    Markey, Ed
    Senator, Massachusetts
    22

    Lieu, Ted
    Representative, California
    22

    Top 10 Republican guests
    Profession
    Appearances

    Kinzinger, Adam
    Representative, Illinois
    49

    DeSantis, Ron
    Representative, Florida
    35

    Brady, Kevin
    Representative, Texas
    29

    Jordan, Jim
    Representative, Ohio
    28

    King, Peter T.
    Representative, New York
    28

    Duffy, Sean
    Representative, Wisconsin
    27

    Dent, Charlie
    Representative, Pennsylvania
    24

    Taylor, Scott
    Representative, Virginia
    23

    Reed, Tom
    Representative, New York
    23

    Thune, John
    Senator, South Dakota
    22

    The guests of Trump’s favorite Fox shows, Fox & Friends and Hannity

    Gregg Jarrett and Andrew Napolitano led in total appearances on Trump’s favorite Fox shows. Jarrett, a Fox News legal analyst, appeared on Hannity 40 times over the course of the study. Napolitano was Fox & Friends top guest with 27 appearances between August 7 and December 8. The second most frequent guest on Hannity was Sebastian Gorka, the former deputy assistant to Trump and current Fox News national security strategist.

    Top 10 Hannity guests
    Appearances

    Jarrett, Gregg
    40

    Gorka, Sebastian
    28

    Rivera, Geraldo
    25

    Carter, Sara
    24

    Elder, Larry
    20

    Gingrich, Newt
    19

    Solomon, John
    15

    Clarke, David
    14

    Schoen, Doug
    14

    Parks, Daryl
    13

    Top 10 Fox & Friends guests
    Appearances

    Napolitano, Andrew
    27

    Varney, Stuart
    25

    Rivera, Geraldo
    18

    Massi, Bob
    18

    Bongino, Dan
    17

    Conway, Kellyanne
    16

    Gingrich, Newt
    13

    Chaffetz, Jason
    12

    Ingraham, Laura
    12

    Porcher, Darrin
    11

    Cortes, Steve
    11

    Knutsson, Kurt
    11

    Shimkus, Carley
    11

    Methodology

    Media Matters’ research staff reviewed video of CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC from August 7 to December 8, 2017, between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. each weekday.

    We recorded persons who appeared in interviews or as a part of a panel in the study. We counted each such person once per show episode each weekday, which constituted a “guest appearance.” Persons in pre-recorded clips were not counted as guest appearances, but persons in pre-recorded interviews airing for the first time were counted. Guest appearances were counted on only their first airing; subsequent airings of prior interviews or panels were not counted. Network correspondents providing updates to ongoing stories or filing pre-recorded news packages were not counted as guest appearances.

    We recorded the following people as Trump-linked guests when they appeared for interviews or as a part of a panel: members of the Trump administration’s cabinet, as listed on the official White House website; Trump’s senior advisers and communications staffers (Kellyanne Conway, Sebastian Gorka (during his tenure), Hope Hicks, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Dan Scavino); members of Trump’s immediate family (including Trump himself); and Trump’s personal lawyer (Jay Sekulow).

    We coded only currently serving members of the House and Senate and governors in our ideological analysis, and only coded such persons as Democrats or Republicans. Because Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) ran on the Democratic ticket in 2016, we counted him as a Democrat for the purposes of this study. We also counted Sen. Angus King (I-ME) as a Democrat because of his prior affiliation with the Democratic Party and because he currently caucuses with the Democratic Party in the Senate. Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello, though a member of the conservative New Progressive Party, was coded as a Democrat for his prior work as a Democratic delegate for then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2008 and then-President Barack Obama in 2012, and he is supported as a Democratic governor by the independent voluntary political organization Democratic Governors Association.

    Additional research by Media Matters' research department.