Fox News and CNN have hardly covered Stephen Miller’s white nationalist emails
Written by Rob Savillo
Published
Updated
Correction (11/18/19): This article has been updated to reflect that Fox News mentioned Stephen Miller’s emails once.
Fox News and CNN have barely covered leaked emails from White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller that highlighted his affinity for racist rhetoric and white nationalist conspiracy theories, according to a Media Matters review. Fox has reported on Miller’s emails for only 42 seconds, while CNN has devoted just seven minutes of coverage to it since November 12, when the emails were revealed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
According to SPLC’s Hatewatch, a blog that monitors hate speech and activities from the far right, Miller sent more than 900 emails to editors at the conservative website Breitbart between March 4, 2015, and June 27, 2016. More than 80% of the leaked emails appeared in threads about race or immigration in which Miller made references to white nationalist websites VDare and American Renaissance and shared obsessions with “white genocide,” xenophobic conspiracy theories, and eugenics-era immigration policies once supported by Adolf Hitler.
Miller has been at the center of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, which includes an executive order banning migrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, the policy of family separation at the southern border, and arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants.
Media Matters reviewed cable news transcripts for discussion of the leaked emails and found that since November 12, Fox News has covered the story just once on The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, for 42 seconds. Additionally, CNN devoted just seven minutes to Miller’s emails despite CNN’s Reliable Sources host, Brian Stelter, describing the revelations as “one other story ... that I hope doesn’t get overlooked.” MSNBC, by contrast, spent an hour and nine minutes on the leaked emails, including lengthy segments on All In with Chris Hayes, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, Morning Joe, and AM Joy.
Methdology
Media Matters reviewed transcripts from the SnapStream video database for any of the terms “Stephen Miller,” “Steven Miller,” or “Miller” within close proximity of either “email” or “e-mail” and within close proximity of any of the following terms: “great replacement,” “white nationalist,” “white nationalism,” “anti-immigrant,” “anti immigrant,” “racist,” “anti-muslim,” “anti muslim,” “extremist,” “white genocide,” “Mein Kampf,” “eugenics,” “conspiracy theory,” “Breitbart,” “race,” “immigration,” “VDare,” or “American Renaissance.” We searched all original programming since November 12 on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. We then timed all relevant speech about the topic, which included teasers, passing mentions, interview questions and answers, and full segments.