Broadcast Networks Ignored Democracy Awakening, Democracy Spring Protests

Democracy Spring Urges Congressional Action On Specific Bills To “Save Our Democracy.” An April 19 Vox article explained that a group called Democracy Spring organized mass protests in Washington (DC) to “demand that Congress listen to the People and take immediate action to save our democracy,” according to the group’s website. Democracy Spring has four specific legislative demands: passing legislation to overturn the 2010 Citizens United decision, passing an update to the Voting Rights Act to restore provisions of the law struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013, passing the Voter Empowerment Act to make voter registration easier, and passing the Fair Elections Now Act to create a public financing system for Senate candidates. Evening Broadcast News Programs Devoted Less Than Half A Minute To Demonstrations.

A Media Matters analysis found that of the four broadcast network evening shows -- ABC's World News Tonight, CBS' CBS Evening News, NBC's NBC Nightly News, and PBS's PBS NewsHour -- only PBS NewsHour devoted any airtime to covering the Democracy Awakening and Democracy Spring protests in Washington (DC), from April 11 to 18. The coverage on PBS was scant, however, with only two segments totaling 29 seconds devoted to the demonstrations. Weekend Network Programs Entirely Ignored The Protests. The analysis found that the five network weekend programs -- ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press, Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, and PBS' PBS NewsHour Weekend -- entirely omitted coverage of the demonstrations and sit-ins in Washington (DC), during their April 16 and 17 broadcasts.