CNBC's Harwood Reacts to MRC Study, Excuses Media Silence on Midterms

Kyle Drennen | October 23, 2014
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More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.

On Thursday's Squawk Box on CNBC, host Joe Kernen cited the Media Research Center's latest study showing the Big Three network evening newscasts have barely noticed the anti-Obama midterm election of 2014 but provided wall-to-wall coverage in 2006: "...they breathlessly reported the Democratic takeover of Capitol Hill in the anti-Bush election of 2006....the coverage of this current situation, 6 to 1 disparity. There were 159 stories about the Democrats taking over in 2006. There have been 25 on the Big Three this [year]."

The business network's chief Washington correspondent John Harwood quickly tried to dismiss the finding and excuse the press for not doing its job: "Well, look, I don't know what data they were using for that....2006 was an election where you had a dominant overriding issue, and that was the Iraq war. Which was extremely controversial, in everybody's face. This is an election where there isn't a dominant issue. You've got a whole bunch of little issues."

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