ABC, CBS, and NBC showered Lindsay Clancy with predominantly positive coverage after her widely televised murder case ended in a mistrial, according to a Media Research Center analysis.
Meanwhile, the networks delivered overwhelmingly hostile treatment to the lone juror who insisted Clancy was guilty.
Clancy, a Massachusetts woman who strangled her three children to death in 2023, faced a criminal trial that ended with a hung jury in early September.
MRC analysts examined 19 segments aired by the three networks from September 8 through September 13.
The analysis found that nearly three-quarters of evaluative statements about Clancy on CBS and NBC were positive.
CBS registered 72% positive coverage, while NBC reached 71%.
ABC was less extreme, but its presentation of Clancy still tilted clearly in her favor.
The network’s coverage was 54% positive, according to the analysis.
Much of that favorable material came from interviews with jurors after the trial.
All three networks repeatedly aired clips featuring sweeping praise for Clancy and her relationship with her children.
“Everything proved that she loved her children,” one Clancy juror said on the September 8 edition of NBC Nightly News.
Another juror offered similar praise during the September 11 edition of CBS Mornings.
“[The witnesses] all described her as an amazing mother… We saw that in every picture that was taken in the house on the night that this happened. Everywhere you looked, there was just love,” the juror said.
CBS journalists also provided Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, with a friendly national platform.
During a September 9 CBS Mornings interview, co-hosts Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell allowed Reddington to criticize the police investigation and shift attention away from his client.
When Reddington attempted to deflect blame from Clancy, King interjected: “I think people don’t understand about postpartum psychosis.”
O’Donnell later asked him, “Last week you called it a horrible investigation, and said it was not an investigation. What do you believe was the single biggest failure?”
The treatment of the holdout juror moved in the opposite direction.
Other jurors were invited to air their grievances about the one person who voted for guilt, and the coverage grew more hostile after NBC10 Boston learned his identity.
On September 11, NBC10 published allegations concerning the juror’s past dating to 2021.
The report included a dismissed domestic violence charge, a claim that his mother called him “evil,” and information that he had been late with rent payments.
ABC moved quickly to amplify NBC10’s investigation.
World News Tonight aired a full segment about the juror’s alleged misconduct on September 11, before NBC carried its own nationally televised report the next morning on Today.
CBS was the only network that did not cover NBC10’s report about the holdout juror.
Even so, MRC found that CBS coverage of him was 80% negative.
NBC’s final tally was even more lopsided, with 98% negative coverage of the juror.
That figure consisted of 50 negative statements and only one positive statement, while ABC’s coverage reached 96.5% negative.
The episode was not NBC’s first controversy involving jurors in a closely watched criminal trial.
During Kyle Rittenhouse’s 2021 murder trial, a freelance MSNBC producer was caught following a van transporting several jurors.
Police stopped and ticketed the producer after he drove through a stoplight.
The judge then banned NBC and MSNBC personnel from the courthouse for the remainder of the trial.
Across all three networks, Clancy received an aggregate 64.6% positive coverage rating.
The juror who voted to convict her received 94.7% negative coverage, making the networks four times more critical of him than of Clancy since September 8.
The analysis also found that only 12 of the 19 segments, or 63%, clearly explained why Clancy had been placed on trial.
The networks found ample time to praise Clancy and investigate a juror, yet more than one-third of their segments failed to clearly provide that basic fact.
