While most major network television news sources have covered the war in Ukraine, not all coverage is the same. Different stations have different agendas and their coverage of events is colored by these biases. The table below analyzes the coverage of Ukraine by the three main network television sources: CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. The table illustrates their relative use of selected words included in their coverage of Ukraine.
To explore this, we developed a list of words that might signal the tone or context of a given story on Ukraine (left column). We then gathered data totaling how many times each station included this word within 3 minutes of using the word "Ukraine." Using these totals, we determined the average useage of each word across all three stations by year and the standard deviation of the three values. Standard deviation is a common statistical measure of the spread of a set of values relative to their average. The values depicted below indicate the distance, measured in standard deviation, each station is away from the average of all three, also known as a z-score.
Put simply, extreme values (less than -1 or more than 1) indicate a station used this word much more frequently or much less frequently than the average of all three stations. Higher values mean a network used a word more frequently in association with the word "Ukraine" than the average across the three networks. All data is cumulative by year. To examine the underlying data, click the download button below.
Key Takeaways
In 2023, Fox News used words like "Burisma", "Hunter" (Biden), "corrupt", and "Nazi" much more frequently than CNN or MSNBC. (Burisma refers to Burisma Holdings Ltd., which is one of Ukraine's largest oil and gas companies; Hunter Biden served on the company's board from 2014 to 2019.)
CNN used words like "relief", "invasion", and "investigation" much more frequently in 2023 than Fox News or MSNBC.
In 2022, MSNBC only used the word "Trump" more frequently than CNN or Fox News when discussing Ukraine. It did not use any words more frequently in 2023 than the other two networks. However, it did use words like "aid", "Putin", and "conflict" much less frequently than Fox News or CNN.
How to Use This Chart
First, select the year from which you would like to view the data.
The chart will display each network's relative useage for each word.
You can sort the chart for each network's values by clicking on the network name at the top of each column.
By clicking on the column header, you will sort the values for that column in either ascending or descending order on alternate clicks indicated by a small arrow to the left of each network name.
Red highlighted cells represent a higher value while blue highlighted cells represent a lower value.
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We also examined the volume of coverage the main three cable news networks dedicate to stories regarding Ukraine over the course of the war and compare it to the volume of stories about Ukraine mentioning either "corrupt", "Biden", or "Burisma."
Key Takeaways
All three news outlets produced similar trends throughout their coverage of Ukraine and mentions of either "corrupt", "Biden", or "Burisma." Even into 2023, the coverage did not differ significantly.
Throughout the first 3 months of the war, CNN devoted on average 12.7% of their coverage on Ukraine, which was more than FOX (on average 8.3%) and MSNBC (on average 9.9%).
The average coverage devoted to mentions of "corrupt," "Biden," or "Burisma" within the first 3 months since the invasion did not differ significantly between the networks.
