Since former President Donald Trump launched his latest campaign with two rallies in New Hampshire and South Carolina on January 28, 2023 – approximately three months after announcing his candidacy – mainstream media have largely overlooked the fact that Trump also attempted to subvert the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021, in coverage about his campaign.

Media Matters reviewed transcripts on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC from January 28 through February 3 and found that of 159 total segments about Trump’s campaign, just 23% mentioned his involvement with the January 6 insurrection. Fox News was the worst offender, with just a single segment – 5% of the network’s campaign coverage. CNN and MSNBC fared slightly better but still mostly ignored Trump’s role in the Capitol riot: just 21% and 28%, respectively, of their segments mentioned January 6.

We also reviewed transcripts for news shows on broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS during the same time period and did not find a single segment that mentioned the Capitol insurrection among the 11 identified segments about Trump’s campaign. According to our review, CBS did not cover Trump’s campaign during the period studied.

Finally, we reviewed the top U.S. newspapers – the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and USA Today – in the same time period and found that of the 13 identified articles about Trump’s campaign, only 5 of them mentioned the Capitol riot. The Washington Post was the worst offender with 4 out of 5 articles failing to mention January 6 while The New York Times mentioned the insurrection in both of its articles touching on Trump’s campaign.

While mainstream media overall failed to consistently mention Trump’s role in January 6 during their campaign coverage, this week also saw a slew of breaking news about various scandals and lawsuits involving the former president.

On Monday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office presented evidence to a grand jury accusing Trump of alleged “hush money” payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) prior to the 2016 presidential election. Also on Monday, Trump filed a lawsuit against journalist Bob Woodward for audio recordings of interviews Trump gave Woodward for his audiobook The Trump Tapes, and the Fulton County district attorney signaled her intention to seek criminal charges against Trump for alleged election interference in Georgia.

On Tuesday, the New York attorney general’s office released video of Trump’s deposition for its investigation into fraudulent business practices employed by the Trump Organization. In the deposition, Trump reportedly invoked the 5th Amendment more than 400 times.

All this was in addition to ongoing investigations into Trump by the Justice Department for withholding classified government documents in his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and, of course, for his role in the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Even though Trump is now enveloped in many new scandals, media have a responsibility – especially during campaign coverage – to mention that the former president once tried to defy the will of the American people by attempting to block Congress from counting the votes in the 2020 presidential election, which culminated in an attack on the U.S. Capitol.

MSNBC’s All in with Chris Hayes did just that in a lengthy opening monologue during its January 31 episode about Trump’s campaign that delved into many of the civil and criminal investigations facing the former president.

CNN’s Jim Acosta also kept the pressure on by consistently invoking the specter of January 6 at the top of segments about Trump’s campaign or leading with Trump’s role in the insurrection when he questioned guests about the campaign.

That kind of reporting should be standard for all media coverage of Trump’s 2024 bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC and all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; NBC’s Today, Nightly News, Sunday Today, and Meet the Press; and PBS’ NewsHour for the term “Trump” within close proximity of any of the terms “White House,” “bid,” “campaign,” “rally,” “2024,” “run,” “primary,” “election,” “event,” “trail,” or “speech” or any variation of either of the terms “candidate” or “presidential” from January 28, 2023, when Donald Trump kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign with rallies in New Hampshire and South Carolina, through February 3, 2023.

We also searched articles in the Factiva database from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and USA Today for the term “Trump” within close proximity of any of the terms “White House,” “bid,” “campaign,” “rally,” “2024,” “run,” “primary,” “election,” “event,” “trail,” or “speech” or any variation of either of the terms “candidate” or “presidential” from January 28, 2023, through February 3, 2023.

We included segments, which we defined as instances when Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the campaign. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the campaign with one another.

We did not include mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the campaign without another speaker engaging with the comment, or teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the campaign scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We also included articles, which we defined as instances when the campaign was mentioned in the headline or lead paragraph.

Within those segments and articles, we reviewed the entire text for whether media properly contextualized the campaign by mentioning Trump’s participation in the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.