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              Harvard Study. US Media Boosting Trump's Popularity

   by Wayne Lee

   Media coverage during the past year has boosted Donald Trump's
   popularity at the expense of rival Hillary Clinton, but that has not
   stopped Clinton from widening her lead over Trump, according to
   findings from a Harvard University study and a new poll.

   A [1]study released Tuesday by Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media,
   Politics and Public Policy said Trump, the presumptive Republican
   presidential nominee, has disproportionately benefited from news
   coverage of his campaign, although Trump has regularly complained the
   media has treated him unfairly.

   Despite the study's findings, Trump announced Monday he is banning the
   Washington Post from campaign events, extending the list of banned
   media organizations to more than a half dozen.

   In response to the ban, The White House Correspondents' Association
   criticized Trump for "arbitrarily" banning news outlets.

   "Any nominee for the highest office in the country must respect the
   role of a free and adversarial press, not disown the principles of the
   First Amendment just because he or she does not like the tone or
   content of their coverage," president Carol Lee said in a statement
   Tuesday.

   The study found Trump received 34 percent of the media's coverage of
   the Republican primaries, far more than any of his Republican rivals.
   Jeb Bush came in second with 18 percent. Trump's media coverage was
   worth about $55 million dollars, compared to $19 million for Bush.

   The report said because Trump had no political experience or voter
   base, he resorted to the use of harsh rhetoric to compete with party
   rivals Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

   "The politics of outrage was [Trump's] edge, and the press became his
   dependable if unwitting ally," the report said. And "Trump exploited
   [the media's] lust for riveting stories," the report found.

   The media was not a generous to the Democratic presidential candidates,
   particularly during the early days of the campaign season, the study
   said. The media coverage was significantly less, but Clinton enjoyed
   substantial leads in polls over Bernie Sanders and other democratic
   hopefuls.

   As media coverage of Trump boosted his poll ratings, it gradually
   eroded Clinton's advantage. Moreover, the study found that 84 percent
   of the issue-related coverage of Clinton was negative.

   The report is based on an analysis of coverage from eight print and
   broadcast news outlets: CBS, Fox, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, The New
   York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

   Despite the study's findings, a poll released Tuesday showed Clinton
   has widened her lead over Trump by seven percentage points.

   The poll, conducted by NBC News and SurveyMonkey, was conducted last
   week, when Clinton secured enough delegates to become the presumptive
   Democrat nominee.  It was also the week in which Trump was roundly
   criticized for claiming a federal judge was biased because of his
   Mexican heritage.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [2]http://www.voanews.com/content/harvard-study-us-media-boosting-trump
   s-popularity/3375551.html

References

   1. http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-trump-clinton-sanders/
   2. http://www.voanews.com/content/harvard-study-us-media-boosting-trumps-popularity/3375551.html