Early Wednesday morning, Republican Dan Sullivan officially defeated incumbent Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska) more than a week after Election Day. With the victory, the GOP now has 53 Senate seats and could pick up a 54th seat if Congressman Bill Cassidy (R-La.) defeats incumbent Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) in December’s runoff election.
Despite the GOP victory, NBC’s Today ignored the story altogether during its Wednesday morning broadcast but found time to talk about the world’s largest corn maze.
In total, NBC devoted 1 minute and 3 seconds to the corn maze and while ABC and CBS did discuss Republican Dan Sullivan’s victory, the two networks only gave it a combined 26 seconds during their two news briefs. GMA gave Republican Dan Sullivan’s victory 10 seconds of coverage but the world’s largest corn maze managed to receive 52 seconds from the network. CBS This Morning did not discuss the corn maze story during its Wednesday morning broadcast. In total, the corn maze received 4.4x more coverage than the Alaska results across the three network morning shows.
CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose described the GOP’s Alaska victory as such:
More than a week after Election Day Republicans have picked up another senate seat. Alaska’s Dan Sullivan claimed victory overnight against Democratic Senator Mark Begich. The victory means the GOP has a 53-46 edge in the next Senate. One seat in Louisiana will be decided by runoff next month.
Furthermore, while the latest GOP midterm victory received only 26 seconds of coverage, all three networks gave a combined 10 minutes 12 of coverage to a story about women having fertility parties to celebrate their decision to freeze their eggs, or 23x more coverage than the Alaska Senate results.
See relevant transcripts below.
CBS This Morning
November 12, 2014
CHARLIE ROSE: More than a week after Election Day Republicans have picked up another senate seat. Alaska’s Dan Sullivan claimed victory overnight against Democratic Senator Mark Begich. The victory means the GOP has a 53-46 edge in the next Senate. One seat in Louisiana will be decided by runoff next month.
ABC’s Good Morning America
November 12, 2014
AMY ROBACH: Republicans have added to their majority in the U.S. Senate next year. That's because overnight Republican Dan Sullivan was declared the winner in Alaska's Senate race. Only Louisiana has a race still up in the air.
— Jeffrey Meyer is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Jeffrey Meyer on Twitter. [1]