Analysis of network and cable news coverage of the Darfur crisis by the American Progress Action Fund reveals what many Americans have long suspected about modern corporate media—it is sensationalistic and obsessed with the trivial at the expense of serious news developments like genocide.  


Each year, the nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC devote a total of roughly 24,900 minutes to news. That is based on an average of 20 minutes of news in each of these newscasts every night – the rest of the half-hour is commercials. In 2004 the ABC, CBS, and NBC network nightly newscasts aired a total of only 26 minutes on genocide and fighting in Sudan. ABC devoted 18 minutes to Darfur coverage, NBC five and CBS only three. By contrast, Martha Stewart's woes received 130 minutes of nightly news coverage. Stated differently, only about 1 in every 950 minutes of news coverage in 2004 covered the genocide in Sudan. 




A quantitative monitoring of all news segments aired in the month of June 2005 on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC shows that coverage of the genocide in Sudan was overwhelmed by stories of far less consequence including the “runaway bride,” the Michael Jackson trial, and Tom Cruise’s new movie and relationship with actress Katie Holmes.* During a month when new fighting and aerial attacks erupted in Sudan, Americans learned almost nothing about these developments from major television news media.    

• During the entire month of June 2005, the major network and cable news stations—broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week— aired only 126 segments on Sudan.
• In contrast, these same stations aired a combined 8303 segments on the “runaway bride”, the Michael Jackson trial, and Tom Cruise.
• Major news media aired 65 times as many segments on these trivial matters as it did on the fighting and genocide in Sudan.

Runaway Bride
Five of the six networks examined in this study gave more emphasis to covering the so-called “runaway bride” in June than they did to covering the tragedy in Sudan.  The Runaway Bride, Jennifer Willbanks, is a Georgia woman who went on a cross-country drive to escape her wedding in late April. Ms. Willbanks concocted a fake story about being kidnapped, and in the process, caught the attention of all the major providers of television news. During June, more than a month after the search for her ended, the six television networks combined devoted more than four times as much coverage to the “runaway bride” as they did to Sudan (a total of 485 segments).

Michael Jackson
For the last two years, television news has been transfixed with the legal troubles of Michael Jackson. In June, the nonstop coverage of Michael Jackson continued as a jury found him not guilty of all charges against him. Although the trial ended early in the month, Jackson received more coverage in the weeks following the verdict than the major networks devoted to Sudan for the entire month of June. Over the course of the month, major broadcast and cable television stations provided Americans with 50 times more coverage of Jackson (a total of 6248 segments) than of events in Sudan.

Tom Cruise
If you own a television, you could not have missed the news that Tom Cruise had a new movie coming out in June; got engaged to the actress Katie Holmes; and had some strong opinions about psychiatry and modern medicine. In fact, there were 1570 segments discussing the ins-and-outs of Tom Cruise’s life this June. No doubt Tom Cruise’s life is somewhat important from a business and cultural perspective, but is it twelve times more important than what is happening to hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan? Based on their coverage in June, the networks seem to think so.

Here is a more concrete example of how broadcast and cable news media chose to focus its attention over the course of just a few days in June.  On June 21, the BBC reported that rebel and government forces were battling in north-eastern Sudan and that there were heavy casualties on both sides.  On June 24, the BBC reported that Sudanese planes dropped bombs for the second day in a row in this same area maiming several civilians.

During this same period of time ABC, CBS and NBC failed to provide any news segments on Sudan, while CNN, FOX and MSNBC issued a total of nine reports on the violence in Sudan.   What did they choose to air instead: 322 segments on Tom Cruise; 209 segments on Michael Jackson; and 84 segments on the “Runaway Bride”.

Why does any of this matter?
Roughly three-quarters of Americans state that they get their information from broadcast or cable television.  No other source of information—not newspapers, magazines, or the Internet—comes close to the power of television to inform the public.  Estimates of those who have died because of the tragedy in Sudan range between 80,000 and 400,000, most of those deaths came about because of starvation or a lack of medical care.  Amnesty International estimates that 50,000 may have died from violence since the conflict began.  The horrible events in Sudan can shock the world into action, but only if they are reported.

Put simply, if television does not cover the genocide in Sudan, it does not exist in the minds of many Americans.  If it does not exist in the public’s mind, there is no sense of urgency and no public pressure on world leaders to do anything to stop the killing.

The public grants the media the right to use its airwaves for commerce and profit.  The public should expect at least moderate attention to consequential world developments in return.

* Methodology of June 2005 Research
The research for the June 2005 analysis was conducted using the TVEyes media tracking service (www.TVEyes.com). The numbers reflect keyword searches for program segments. Each segment is a 5 minute-block of television programming. A news-story greater than five minutes in length therefore would be tracked as 2 or more segments. Where a particular network aired a segment more than once, the segment was counted as many times as it aired. Segments were counted where there was any discussion of the applicable keywords. Our analysis tracked 24 hours of coverage on the six networks. For ABC, CBS, and NBC we tracked the flagship affiliates WABC, WCBS, and WNBC in New York City (this tracking included mentions of the keywords in local programming). The same methodology was used consistently across the four tracked stories and the six tracked networks. The tracked keywords were: “Sudan” and “Darfur” for stories discussing Sudan; “Runaway Bride” for segments discussing the Runaway Bride; “Michael Jackson” for Michael Jackson stories; and “Tom Cruise” for Tom Cruise stories.