Transcript

The Gap Between Media Coverage and Public Opinion

From Morning Wire · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 12 min · 2,283 words · 22 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Gap Between Media Coverage and Public Opinion", an episode of Morning Wire published January 31, 2026 (12 min, about 2,283 words). It mentions 9 people, works and ideas, including Bill Dagghastino, Media Research Center, Donald Trump, Nick Shirley, CBS.

What this episode is about

The discussion highlights the stark contrast between the legacy media's coverage of immigration policy and the divided opinions of the American public. An analyst from a media research center reveals that the big three newscasts have adopted a largely unipolar perspective on the issue, suggesting a disconnect between media narratives and societal views.

Key takeaways

  • Legacy media's ICE coverage: 93% negative—because what's a good story without a villain?
  • Only 1.6% of ICE coverage mentioned crimes by illegal aliens—talk about missing the forest for the trees.
  • CBS's 96% negative stance on ICE pairs well with their 'murder' allegations—objectivity at its finest!
  • Independent media highlights organized protest funding; legacy press prefers omitting the puppet strings.
  • In a world of divided opinions, legacy media's unipolar narratives are like a one-note song on repeat.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 3:00: Media Research Center, Lean, Georgia How, John Bickley
  2. – 6:00: Bill Dagghastino, Donald Trump, CBS, Georgia How
  3. – 9:00: Donald Trump, Nick Shirley
  4. – 12:00: Donald Trump, Nick Shirley
  5. – 12:20: Media Research Center, John Bickley

Notable quotes from "The Gap Between Media Coverage and Public Opinion"

  • Speak to a media research center analyst about just how tilted the big three newscasts have become on the issue. I'm Georgia How with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley.…
    about John Bickley · at
  • Less time snacking and more time focusing on work. the executives love to hear that one. If you want to lose meaningful weight at a healthy pace and keep it off, add lean to…
    about Lean · at
  • Joining us to discuss the latest findings from the Media Research Center, a firm that monitors media bias, is Bill Dagghastino, senior analyst at the MRC.
    about Bill Dagghastino · at
  • Largely, yeah. so it's it's very rare that all three networks will cover any individual violent incident that makes the riers or the protesters, the left in general look.
    about Media Research Center · at
  • They'll wear their Second Amendment hat for as long as it takes for them to win the argument. Now, speaking of CBS, they recently brought up Nick Shirley again in the context…
    about Nick Shirley · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Bill Dagghastino — Person · Main guest · 3 mentions · first at
    Interview subject presenting Media Research Center findings on broadcast-network coverage of ICE and immigration-related unrest.
  • Donald Trump — Person · Referenced political figure (subject of coverage) · 4 mentions · first at
    Central figure in the discussion as networks’ coverage is framed around his administration’s ICE deployment and immigration enforcement.
    Yeah, thanks for having me. Now, President Trump has been slammed in the media just over the past week or so about his deployment of ICE to Minneapolis and then some of the fallout.
  • Nick Shirley — Person · Referenced journalist (example case in coverage) · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as an independent journalist/YouTuber used by CBS (per guest) to reframe a broader alleged fraud story connected to Minneapolis.
  • John Bickley — Person · Co-host · 3 mentions · first at
    Introduced as Daily Wire executive editor and participates in framing questions for the guest about media narratives and polling.
  • Georgia How — Person · Host · 3 mentions · first at
    Introduces the episode and co-hosts the interview segment on media coverage and immigration enforcement.
    Speak to a media research center analyst about just how tilted the big three newscasts have become on the issue. I'm Georgia How with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley.…

Companies & orgs

  • Media Research Center — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions · first at
    Primary organization discussed in the episode, providing analysis on media bias and coverage.
  • CBS — Company · Case study · 1 mention · first at
    One of the major broadcast networks analyzed for media bias in the episode.
    Know, his cell phone video came out, all three networks showed it. but CBS was actually the only network of the three not to explicitly state that Renee Good actually hit…

Sponsors

  • Lean — Product · Sponsor · 3 mentions · first at
    Sponsored product mentioned in the episode, a non-prescription supplement for weight management.
  • Vanta — Product · Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at
    Sponsored product mentioned in the episode, a security and compliance tool for businesses.
    Track of control across dozens of systems. It can turn into chaos. And chaos is not a security strategy. That's where our sponsor Vanta comes in. Think of Vanta as your always…

Full transcript with timestamps

While the American public remains divided on immigration policy, the legacy media has become almost completely unipolar. In this episode, we speak to a media research center analyst about just how tilted the big three newscasts have become on the issue. I'm Georgia How with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Saturday, January 31st, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. This episode is sponsored by Brick House Nutrition. By the time the average person reaches 60, they've likely cycled through numerous fat diets like juice cleanses, the cabbage soup diet, and raw food regimens, collectively losing and regaining several hundred lbs over the years. You've probably done it without even knowing that there's a name for it.

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Joining us to discuss the latest findings from the Media Research Center, a firm that monitors media bias, is Bill Dagghastino, senior analyst at the MRC. Bill, thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Now, President Trump has been slammed in the media just over the past week or so about his deployment of ICE to Minneapolis and then some of the fallout from that. Those of us in the independent media space have reported a more mixed picture of what's going on, but that hasn't been the prevailing narrative in the legacy press. Your organization, the media research center, has come out with some interesting findings regarding the legacy media's emphasis with their coverage. Can you unpack what your firm has found? We primarily focus on broadcast networks when we do these kind of studies because the three evening newscasts uh ABC, NBC, and CBS average about 18 to 20 million viewers per night, which makes them like the most watched news programs in the country. Um the uh the most recent study, we're still updating the numbers to get it more current, but the most

recent full numbers that we have on those evening newscasts uh were from an 11-day period where the coverage was 93% negative against uh against ICE. only only 7% of of it gave any sort of leniency or leeway to ICE. I think most salient though of of all the details that we picked out from that is that only 1.6% of of any of the coverage had anything to do with crimes committed by some of the illegal aliens that ICE was there to apprehend to begin with. Beyond not discussing the very serious crimes that some of these targeted individuals have committed, there's also been very little coverage of things like property damage and intimidation caused by the protesters and some of the protest tactics that are putting people in harm's way. Have you also been tabulating some of those more contextual stories?

Largely, yeah. I mean, so it's it's very rare that all three networks will cover any individual violent incident that um that makes makes the riers or the protesters, the left in general look bad. Um for example, the uh when when the officer Jonathan Ross, who who shot Renee good, um when when the video from his cell phone, a lot of people were calling it a body cam video, but you know, his cell phone video came out, um all three networks showed it. Um, but CBS was actually the only network of the three not to explicitly state that Renee Good actually hit Jonathan Ross with her car. Um, the the closest they came was pointing out one time that the Trump administration was claiming that, but never actually officially acknowledged it themselves. Um, interestingly, just as a side note, CBS was also the worst of the three networks. They were 96% negative on ICE. Um, they were also the only network that had a reporter just

outright accuse Jonathan Ross of murder. Not even like saying alleged or whatever, just straight up said he murdered Renee Good. Um, which I find interesting because there's a lot of human and cry from the left right now about how CBS has basically become a Trump propaganda network, which our numbers say is very much not the case.

Now, independent media has been reporting on the organized funding and structure of these protests. Has there been any discussion of that angle in the legacy press?

There was none in the um again, we're still updating the numbers. Uh so I don't I don't know some of the most recent broadcasts. I can't say with 100% certainty that they haven't mentioned it. Um but certainly there was none of that in um in the period that we studied and anything that I've I've looked at since then and we're we're about we're a few days behind still as as far as updating all the numbers. But it's um it's there's basically no interest whatsoever in investigating what is actually like behind these protests. And more importantly, I think what what is the cause of of this whole melee to begin with, right? Because it's it's basically there are three things that could or I guess have to change for the temperature to be taken down, which is one, the Trump administration backs down and uh and sends ICE out of of the state, right? stops trying to enforce immigration law. Two, state law

enforcement are permitted to assist ICE and like protect them from protesters. And three, the left just in general stops stops trying to actually prevent ICE from doing its job, right? And so only one of those is something that the president of the United States campaigned heavily on, one on, and is now trying to enact, right? And so basically all of this is the result of Minnesota being a sanctuary state and Minneapolis being a sanctuary city. Um that is never mentioned in any of the coverage, right? And that's I I think probably the most important context that you could provide to anybody who has a question of the obvious question of well why is this suddenly happening in Minneapolis? Because ICE has been all over the country. Why aren't we seeing this anywhere else? And and the answer is that. Um, but the media have absolutely no interest in in pointing that out because that that makes the

left and Democrats at large look bad. Now, it's not one of the main three nightly broadcasts that you mentioned, but The View also brings in a lot of viewers, and they actually talked about something really interesting on a recent show. I'm wondering if you can weigh in on this. uh they actually supported and defended the Second Amendment when it came to Alex Prey, which is a pretty wild departure from their usual stance if you uh follow their show. Can you describe the argument that was presented on The View?

I mean, yeah, this is this is kind of the lowinfo disingenuous take that's being pushed by a lot of a lot of liberals. Um not necessarily I mean some Democrat politicians, too, I guess. But the I the idea is basically, oh, okay, so just because the guy had a gun when he was when he was interfering with law enforcement and acting aggressive towards them, suddenly that means they can shoot him, him possessing a gun. Okay, well I I guess the right doesn't support the Second Amendment anymore. That's basically the argument. The thing I think that everybody is failing to notice when they make that argument is the term brandish or the phrase brandish at law enforcement is actually nowhere in the Second Amendment. And I think for a probably a pretty obvious reason, but more more generally, this is this is actually fairly consistent for the view in as much as they basically have no principles and will argue whatever facts

they think bolster whatever narrative they're trying to push, right? So if if becoming pro- second amendment they think helps their argument, then okay, they'll wear their Second Amendment hat for as long as it takes for them to win the argument. Now, speaking of CBS, they recently brought up Nick Shirley again in the context of some of the unrest in Minneapolis. What are they saying about Nick Shirley?

Yeah, Nick Shirley is the uh he's he's an independent journalist, I think mostly a YouTuber uh from what I understand. And he he went around um in December of 2025, he went around uh Minneapolis looking at a lot of these Somalun daycare centers and found that a lot of them uh had no kids in them whatsoever. A lot of them seemed to be uh barely operational, if operational at all. Everybody was very um very testy with him. Wouldn't let him, you know, check out the place at all. And the the implication there is that basically these are these are scams, right? These are people not actually providing the services that they're telling the state they're providing and receiving a lot of government funding, which funding which they're basically just pocketing. That's the implication. Um there's there's been a ton of aggressive push back against him from the left in general. The way that the broadcast networks have have

dealt with Shirley is um generally to try to reenter the entire Minneapolis um mostly Somali like fraud story writ large around him u basically to recontextualize it as well all of this came from this this right-wing YouTuber who went out and uh and shot this this questionable video of him asking asking to enter daycare centers when he had no right to enter. That's that's basically the argument that they're making. Of course, um the daycare side of things is is significantly smaller than the larger portion, which is healthcare, where the total is is estimated to be about $19 billion of fraud. The reason that they're doing this is is basically to minimize what the actual story is.

Now, you mentioned that the big three networks have a massive combined audience. How do you think the coverage from the legacy press is affecting general support for ICE? Do you think most Americans opinions at this point are baked in or is this having a pretty devastating effect?

Probably not as much as these networks would would hope that it is. Uh I have seen some some polls from like Yuggov, which I I generally don't think many people take too seriously as as an accurate gauge of uh of public consensus. Um saying that ICE a lot of people think ICE is going too far in their enforcement tactics. Um, but we're seeing a lot of other polls that, and we've seen this, by the way, for the entire Trump administration, second Trump administration's duration so far, um, that show that the majority of Americans actually do still support mass deportations of illegal aliens. Uh and in fact it's it's kind of become this like this this constant source of frustration for the media because every time they pull it they find that yeah still a majority of Americans support mass deportations and everybody is is all of them are basically competing to try to become the first network or the

first poll group uh to finally find a way to phrase the question at the right time with the right cohort of poll respondents um to to get that under 50% result. Right. And and finally, so then everybody can run headlines of, oh, you know, has America turned on ISIS's immigration plan?

Well, Bill, this was very helpful. Thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

That was Bill Dagustinino from the Media Research Center, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Gap Between Media Coverage and Public Opinion"?

Georgia How (Host), Bill Dagghastino (Guest).

What is "The Gap Between Media Coverage and Public Opinion" about?

The discussion highlights the stark contrast between the legacy media's coverage of immigration policy and the divided opinions of the American public. An analyst from a media research center reveals that the big three newscasts have adopted a largely unipolar perspective on the issue, suggesting a disconnect between media narratives and societal views.

What is mentioned in this Morning Wire episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Bill Dagghastino, Media Research Center, Donald Trump, Nick Shirley, CBS, John Bickley. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Gap Between Media Coverage and Public Opinion"?

The episode runs 12 min; the transcript is about 2,283 words in 22 timestamped sections.

More from Morning Wire

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 1, 2026.