Let’s start with something simple: an overview of the words used in each network’s chyrons. We’ll plot each word as a dot on this triangle, where the closer a dot is to a particular network’s name, the more likely the word it represents is to be used by that network than the others.

For example, these three dots represent anchors from the three networks: Anderson Cooper, Lester Holt, and Tucker Carlson.

Since these names are used very frequently by their respective channels and rarely by the others, they sit very close to their own corner. A word that is used about equally would end up in the middle.

Here are the rest of the words. Now, we’ll go through some major news topics from the past few months and see where words related to those topics fall on the chart.

The Russia Investigation

The investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia has been a major news item since the 2016 election, but the bulk of its cable coverage has come from MSNBC.

mueller flynn putin kremlin moscow russia obstruct

The Clintons

Though Hillary Clinton has made few public appearances following the 2016 election, she, her family, and events related to her campaign have still been a big news item on Fox.

uranium benghazi chelsea server abedin podesta

Hurricanes

2017 had one of the most active hurricane seasons in recorded history. Storms slammed the southern United States and Puerto Rico, causing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damages. CNN’s coverage focused on hurricanes more than the other networks.

irma storm wind pummel tropic caribbean mph

NFL Protests

Though all three networks covered the NFL protests, Fox focused slightly more on Colin Kaepernick and the word “anthem.”

nfl kneel anthem kaepernick flag

North Korea

Coverage of North Korea’s development of nuclear-capable missiles has been covered about equally by the three networks.

korea kim nuclear icbm launch rocket

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So far, we’ve focused on raw word counts. That’s useful for getting a broad sense of the issues networks are focusing on, but it leaves out a big part of the picture.

You’ve probably heard about the 24-hour news cycle—the phenomenon where reporters scramble to cover a breaking news event before it fades from the public eye and another item takes its place.

Michael Flynn

Here’s an example of a news event that follows that pattern. This chart shows how frequently the word “Flynn” was used by the three networks over time. There’s a big spike on December 1, when Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, but coverage quickly tapers off.

But that’s not always the case. Some news items are so big and persistent that they’re almost always in the spotlight.

President Trump

Coverage of President Trump, for example, is near-constant. It ebbs and flows and there are slight differences between networks, but for the most part, it’s always there.

Finally, there’s the “long tail” pattern. That’s when a news event receives lots of initial coverage, but instead of immediately fading away, it sticks around in the background for a while. It’s especially interesting when only one network keeps up the coverage.

National Anthem Protests

Colin Kaepernick began kneeling for the national anthem in 2016, but coverage picked up in early September, when Trump tweeted about the protest. Coverage of the protests quickly tapered off for all of the networks except one. Fox kept it in the news through November.

That means even weeks after the national anthem protests had faded from the screens and papers of most American news consumers, Fox viewers were still being reminded of them on a daily basis.

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All this data about how often words are used is interesting, but it still misses something big. It’s entirely possible for two networks to cover the exact same event or issue completely differently. We need to look at context.

To do that, we’ll examine the words that are used with other words in the same chyron. For example, there’s a difference in meaning between using the word “gun” in the context of “violence” versus “control.”

Gun

Here, we can see that difference clearly. In covering guns, Fox’s chyrons focus overwhelming on gun control, whereas the topics on MSNBC and CNN were more varied.

Right now we’re looking at the weighted ranking of related terms. That’s the number of times the related word is used in the same chyron as “gun” multiplied by how uniquely that term is used with “gun” compared to other terms.

This draws out related words that are both used frequently with the selected word and unique to the selected word, rather than focusing on words like “Trump,” which are commonly used with, well, everything. You can use the toggle to see what the list looks like based on the raw count. Now, let’s look at a few more words.

Dossier

The dossier compiled by ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele has been a major sticking point in the Trump-Russia investigation. In covering the dossier, Fox focuses on the fact that it’s anti-Trump, whereas MSNBC emphasizes the way it connects Trump to Russia.

Trump

Speaking of Trump, here’s how he’s covered. Fox sticks out by focusing on his title while the other networks discuss policies and controversies.

Tweet

In discussing Twitter (usually the president’s), Fox focuses on the tweeter, CNN focuses on the action of tweeting, and MSNBC focuses on the tweet’s content.

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