Over the weekend, the Women’s March in New York City drew 200,000 people. Chicago drew 300,000. Los Angeles, half a million. And then there were the “small” marches—20,000 in Phoenix, Arizona. Five thousand in Lansing, Michigan. Thousands in Asheville, North Carolina, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and cities around the country. But you wouldn’t know it if you get your news from the Sunday talk shows:
On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos briefly acknowledged the “Women’s Marches in hundreds of cities all across the country” in his opening monologue, and later in the show, panelist Karen Finney mentioned “all the people who were marching in the streets yesterday.” No one responded directly to her comments about the marches. On CBS’ Face The Nation, conservative outlet The Federalist’s publisher Ben Domenech noted the “pro-life March For Life that happens every year, followed by the Women’s March on the other side” while discussing Trump’s first year in office.
The only significant discussion, defined as a back-and-forth exchange between two or more people, of the weekend’s marches was on NBC’s Meet the Press, where panelists remarked on the event in a meager 20-second exchange. Host Chuck Todd also mentioned the “hundreds of thousands of women march[ing] across the country protesting the president, many with an eye towards more women winning office this November” in his opening monologue.
Well over a million people marched, not just in the big cities or the blue states but in the small cities and the swing states and the red states. And to the biggest media voices with the highest-prestige shows, it was barely worth a mention.