Tag Archives: Mitt Romney

TV News Record: Six takeaways from adding Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama & more to Face-o-Matic facial detection

A round up on what’s happening at the TV News Archive by Katie Dahl and Nancy Watzman.

This week we release new data generated by our Face-o-Matic tool, developed in collaboration with Matroid, adding to our list of public figures detected by facial-recognition on major cable news stations on the  TV News Archive.

In addition to President Donald Trump and the four congressional leaders, the expanded list now includes most former living presidents and recent major party presidential contenders, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. (For the full list of public officials tracked, as well as methodical notes, see bottom of the post.)

Detecting faces on TV news and turning them into data provides a new quantitative path for journalists and researchers to explore how news is presented to the public and compare and contrast editorial choices that individual networks make. This new measure shows us the duration that politicians’ faces are actually shown on screen, whether it’s a clip of that person speaking, muted footage, or a still photo shown in the background to illustrate a point.

Adding to the Television Explorer, fueled by closed captions and our Third Eye chyron reading tool, a wealth of information is now available to analyze. (See the TV News Archive home page for examples of visualizations created by journalists and researchers using TV News Archive data.)

Here are six quick takeaways using Face-o-Matic for an analysis covering roughly six months, from November 2017 through May 2018, looking at four cable TV news networks: BBC News, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.

Download Face-o-Matic data to explore your own research questions.

1. Trump trumps every other political figure in face-time on cable TV news, all the time, every day, in every way, on every network and program.

As we’ve seen in past analyses with Face-o-Matic data, President Donald Trump is the major political star on cable TV news as compared to other top political figures examined. To put this in perspective: over a six month period stretching from November 2017 to May 2018, the president’s face appeared on TV cable news the equivalent of a full 13.5 days, counting every second of face-time. The next closest political figure we analyzed was House Speaker Paul Ryan, R., Wis., whose visage appeared the equivalent of one day.


  1. After Trump, GOP leaders in Congress are the most popular faces on TV cable news.

The two GOP leaders in Congress, Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R., Ky. are the next most popular faces on TV news cable news networks. Between the two, Ryan ranks first on the TV news cable networks we examined: BBC News, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.  McConnell is the next most shown face on these networks, with the exception of BBC News.

Link to interactive version of above chart, where view can be changed to exclude specific politicians.

  1. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama figure prominently on Fox News.

Fox News airs proportionately more images of failed presidential candidate 2016 Hillary Clinton and former president Barack Obama than other cable TV news networks. Fox News showed Clinton’s face 7.6 times more than CNN did, and Obama’s 3.6 times more. Fox News also showed Clinton 3.6 times more than MSNBC, and Obama, 2.3 times more.


  1. Hannity shows more Hillary Clinton face-time than any other top-rated Fox News show.

Not only does the Fox News “Hannity” program air more images of Hillary Clinton proportionately than any other top rated Fox News show, with just one exception, it is the Fox News show that shows her face more than current congressional leaders–Ryan, McConnell, Schumer or Pelosi. “Hannity” also shows more images of Obama than other top rated Fox News shows.

Link to interactive version of above chart, where view can be changed to exclude specific politicians.

  1. Ryan face-time spikes on news shows aired during morning hours.

All three U.S. cable news networks examined showed high rates of face-time for Ryan on shows airing during morning hours, ranging from 9 am to 11 am. This may be linked to his leadership role in Congress and that morning hours are prime for large announcements. For example, on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” and “Happening Now” show spikes of face-time for Ryan. On MSNBC, “Live with Hallie Jackson” and “Live with Velshi and Ruhle” show high rates of images for Ryan. And on CNN, “At This Hour with Kate Bolduan” shows high rates of Ryan as well. 

Links to interactive charts for top-rated news shows; view can be adjusted to exclude specific politicians. The source for top-rated shows is shows with 2017 top viewership by Nielsen.

Top-rated Fox News shows.

Top-rated MSNBC news shows.

Top-rated CNN shows.

  1. BBC News just isn’t that into us.

BBC News provides a window into how news is presented to a major foreign audience. Like U.S. cable news networks, BBC News features more face-time for Trump than other political figures examined. Ryan ranks a distant second. Overall, BBC News, however, shows much lower rates of images of U.S. political figures than U.S. cable news shows do.

Link to interactive version of above chart, where view can be changed to exclude specific politicians.

Methodological notes

The Face-o-Matic data set, available for download on the Internet Archive, uses facial recognition to track the faces of prominent public officials as they appear on major cable TV news networks: BBC News, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. The list of public officials tracked, along with the date that detection began, is here:

President & current congressional leaders

President Donald Trump, 7/13/17

Speaker Paul Ryan, R., Wis., 7/13/17

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D., Calif., 7/13/17

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R., Ky., 7/13/17

Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, D., N.Y., 7/13/17

Former living presidents and recent major party presidential candidates*

George H.W. Bush, 10/5/17

George W. Bush, 11/1/17

Jimmy Carter, 10/21/17

Bill Clinton, 9/12/17

Hillary Clinton, 9/12/17

Barack Obama, 7/13/17

Mitt Romney, 10/4/17

*Note: Our data set does not include Sen. John McCain, R., Ariz., who ran for president opposite Obama in 2008. Sample testing of facial detection for the senator revealed a somewhat frequent rate of false positives  – instances where the identified face was not the senator’s, but rather one of a number of lookalikes. While we make no claim that all of the detections in the Face-o-matic data set are error free, we did test faces to minimize these. Please be sure to notify us if you find errors in the data.

TV News Record: Whoops, they said it again (on taxes)

A biweekly round up on what’s happening at the TV News Archive by Katie Dahl and Nancy Watzman

This week, we demonstrate GOP and Democrat talking points on taxes; display a case of mistaken facial identity; and present fact checks on the GOP tax proposal.

Whoops, they said it again

Was that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D., Calif., who said “tax cuts for the rich”? Or was that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D., N.Y.? Wait: they both said it. Often.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R., Wis., keeps talking about tax reform being a “once in a generation opportunity,” and, coincidence!, so does Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R., Ky. It’s a recurring theme.

These types of repeated phrases, often vetted via communication staff, are known as “talking points,” and it’s the way politicians, lobbyists, and other denizens of the nation’s capital sell policy. The TV News Archive is working toward the goal of applying artificial intelligence (AI) to our free, online library of TV news to help ferret out talking points so we can better understand how political messages are crafted and disseminated.

For now, we don’t have an automated way to identify such repeated phrases from the thousands of hours of television news coverage. However, searching within our curated archives of top political leaders can provide a quick way to check for a phrase you think you’re hearing often. Visit archive.org/tv to find our Trump archive, executive branch archive, and congressional archives, click into an archive, then search for the phrase within that archive.

Sample search results in the congressional archive

Funny, you look familiar

Wait, is this former President George W. Bush trying out a new look?

No, it’s not. This is Bob Massi, a legal analyst for Fox Business News and host of “Bob Massi is the Property Man.”  In a test run of new faces for our Face-o-Matic facial detection tool, Massi’s uncanny resemblance (minus the hair) to the former president earned him a “false positive” – the algorithm identified this appearance as Bush incorrectly.

This doesn’t get us too worried, as we still include human testers and editors in our secret sauce: we’ll retrain our algorithm to disregard photos of Massi in the TV news stream. It does point toward why we want to be very careful, particularly with facial recognition, where a private individual may be tracked inadvertently or a public official misrepresented. Our concern about developing ethical practices with facial recognition is why, for the present, we are restricting our face-finding to elected officials. We invite discussion with the greater community about ethical practices in applying AI to the TV News Archive at tvnews@archive.org.

In our current Face-o-Matic set we track the faces of President Donald Trump and the four congressional leaders in their TV news appearances. After receiving feedback from journalists and researchers, our next set will include living ex-presidents and recent major presidential party nominees: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush,  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Stay tuned, while we fine tune our model.

Fact-check: everyone will get a tax cut (false)

In an interview on November 7, on Fox News’s new “The Ingraham Angle,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R., Wis., says: “Everyone enjoys a tax cut all across the board.”

Pulling in information from the Tax Policy Center and a tax model created by the American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Post’s Fact Checker Glenn Kessler counters Ryan’s claim: “In the case of married families with children — whom Republicans are assiduously wooing as beneficiaries of their plan — about 40 percent are estimated to receive tax hikes by 2027, even if the provisions are retained.”

Ryan changed his language, according to Kessler, following an inquiry on November 8 from the Fact Checker. Now he is saying, “the average taxpayer in all income levels gets a tax cut.”

Fact-check: tax bill not being scored by CBO as is tradition (false)

In an interview on November 12 on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D., Ill., claimed that the GOP tax plan is “not being scored by the Congressional Budget Office, as it is traditionally. It’s because it doesn’t add up.”

“Under the most obvious interpretation of that statement, Durbin is incorrect. The nonpartisan analysis for tax bills is actually a task handled by the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the committee has been actively analyzing the Republican tax bills,” reported Louis Jacobson of PolitiFact.

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Is it 1968? Not really — but past convention video clips show controversy

Research by Robin Chin

Is it 1968? Many pundits have been asking this question in recent days, in the lead up to what is expected to be a contentious–and some worry about violent–GOP convention in Cleveland, where Donald Trump is expected to accept the GOP nomination. A spate of mass gun killings, the death of two African American men in recent weeks at the hands of police, the murder of five police officers by a sniper during a demonstration and then three more by a lone gun man in Baton Rouge, terrorism here and abroad, involvement overseas in intractable conflicts, growing economic inequality — none of these developments quite parallel the tumultuous events of the 1960s. But the situation was volatile then, and it’s volatile now.

To set the scene, thanks to the TV News Archive, the Internet Archive‘s online free library of TV news clips, revisiting some of the more “crazy” conventions of years past (headline by Politico), or simply notable or controversial moments, is just a search away. All of these clips are editable, embeddable, and shareable on social media.

Chicago, 1968

When the Democrats met in Chicago in 1968, it was in the shadow of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Democratic primary candidate Robert Kennedy. Vice President Hubert Humphrey had the support of the some 60 percent of the delegates, largely local party leaders — people who would be super delegates today. While a liberal, Humphrey’s support of the war as Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president made him unpopular in the anti-war movement.

As described by Politico, “With Humphrey’s nomination all but certain, protesters associated with the Youth International Party (the Yippies) and National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (the MOBE) took to the streets outside Chicago’s convention hall; inside, city policemen allied with the local political machine roughed up liberal delegates and journalists in plain view of news cameras. “I wasn’t sentenced and sent here!” a prominent New York Democrat bellowed as a uniformed officer dragged him off the floor. “I was elected!”

The clip below, from the CNN documentary series, “The Sixties,” shows police beating up protestors on the streets. A special commission appointed to investigate the protests characterized the violent events as a “police riot” directed at protesters and recommended prosecution of police who used indiscriminate violence.

That same night, Humphrey took to the podium to accept the nomination. He referred the violence outside when he said, “[O]ne cannot help but reflect, the deep sadness that we feel over the troubles and the violence which have erupted regrettably and tragically in the streets of this great city and for the personal injuries that have occurred. Surely we have now learned the lesson that violence breeds counter violence and it cannot be condoned whatever the source.”

San Francisco, 1964

In 1964, GOP moderates Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney, then governor of Michigan, led an unsuccessful campaign against conservative insurgent Barry Goldwater, at a convention Goldwater biographer Robert Alan Goldberg later dubbed the “Woodstock of the right.” (Romney was former presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s father.) Goldwater was a fierce opponent of the Civil Rights Act and strong supporter of military intervention against the Soviet Union.

Some have compared him to Trump because of his belligerence and unpopularity with the establishment Republicans. For example, like Trump, he was not one to mince words about his enemies. At the convention, when asked by a reporter about LBJ and the Civil Rights Act, he replied, “He’s the phoniest individual who ever came around.”

The convention was raucous, filled with delegates booing the moderates — as when Rockefeller called on the crowd to reject extremists. But the moment most remembered was when Goldwater took the podium to accept the nomination, when, to enormous applause, he said:

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. [applause] And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

Goldwater went on to lose the election, badly, to Lyndon B. Johnson.

Other historic moments

The TV News Archive is full of many other convention speech clips of moments that turned history’s tide. Here, for example, is John F. Kennedy, accepting the Democratic nomination in 1960, stating that voters should not “throw away” their vote because of concern about his religious affiliation. He went on to become the first Catholic president of the United States.

And here is Richard Nixon, in his 1968 nomination speech, talking about the increase in crime and criticizing those who say “law and order” was code for racism. He was speaking to the charged issues surrounding race and policing at the time:

“Time is running out for the merchants of corruption…and to those who say law and order is a code word for racism there and here is the reply. Our goal is justice for every American. If we are to have respect for law in America we must have laws that deserve respect.”

Nixon’s words, however, have a doubly ironic ring today. First, because the debate over policing in the African American community stubbornly persists decades later. And second, because of his own role in covering up the Watergate scandal, which involved dirty tricks against the Democrats during the 1972 campaign. Nixon would eventually resign from the presidency in 1974. Three years later, in 1977, the journalist David Frost asked Nixon under what circumstances a president can do something illegal. Nixon’s famous answer: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

For those wanting to plumb the riches of past convention speeches, below is a list, with links, of most major convention speeches by nominees, starting with Harry Truman in 1948 and going to Barack Obama in 2012. The speeches were broadcast on C-Span.

1948: Harry Truman acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, PA Part 1.

Harry Truman acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, PA Part 2.

1952: Adlai Stevenson acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention in Chicago, IL Part 1.

Adlai Stevenson acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention in Chicago, IL Part 2.

1956: Republican Convention and Eisenhower’s nomination  Universal newsreel.

Dwight D. Eisenhower acceptance speech at Republican National Convention in Daly City, CA Part 1.

Dwight D. Eisenhower acceptance speech at Republican National Convention in Daly City, CA Part 2.

1960: John F. Kennedy acceptance speech at 1960 Democratic National Conventions in Los Angeles, CA Part 1.

John F. Kennedy acceptance speech at 1960 Democratic National Conventions in Los Angeles, CA Part 2.

Former President Hebert Hoover speech at Republican National Convention Chicago, IL.

Henry Cabot Lodge VP acceptance speech at  National Convention Chicago, IL.

1964: Barry Goldwater acceptance speech at Republican National Convention Daly City, CA.

Robert Kennedy speech at Democratic National Convention Atlantic City, NJ.

Lyndon Johnson acceptance speech Atlantic City, NJ Part 1.

Lyndon Johnson acceptance speech Atlantic City, NJ Part 2.

1968: Spiro Agnew VP acceptance speech at Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, FL.

Richard Nixon acceptance speech at Republican National Convention Miami Beach, FL.

Hubert Humphrey acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention Chicago, Il  NBC News.

1972: McGovern acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention Miami Beach, FL Part 1.

McGovern acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention Miami Beach, FL Part 2.

Richard Nixon acceptance speech at Republican National Convention Miami Beach, FL.

Richard Nixon acceptance speech at Republican National Convention Miami Beach, Florida NBC News.

1976: Barbara Jordan keynote speech at Democratic Convention New York, NY.

Jimmy Carter acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention New York, NY Part 1.

Jimmy Carter acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention New York, NY Part 2.

August 17, 1976 Republic National Convention Kansas City, MO delegates debating Ronald Reagan rule requiring Ford to name VP before they vote  CBS News Part 1.

August 17, 976 Republic National Convention Kansas City, MO includes delegates debating Ronald Reagan rule C16 requiring Ford to name VP before they vote  CBS News Part 2.

Gerald Ford acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention Kansas City, MO Part 1.

Gerald Ford acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention Kansas City, MO Part 2.

Ronald Reagan endorsement speech of Gerald Ford as Presidential Nominee at Republican National Convention Kansas City, MO.

1980: Ronald Reagan acceptance speech  at the Republican National Convention Detroit, MI.

Ted Kennedy speech at Democratic National Convention in New York. Kennedy was a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Jimmy Carter acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention in New York, NY Part 1.

Jimmy Carter acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention in New York, NY Part 2.

1984: Geraldine Ferraro VP acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention San Francisco, CA.

Walter Mondale acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention San Francisco, CA Part 1.

Walter Mondale acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention San Francisco, CA Part 2.

Ronald Reagan acceptance speech at Republican National Convention Dallas, TX.

Mario Cuomo keynote speech at Democratic National Convention San Franciso, CA.

1988: Ann Richards keynote speech at Democratic National Convention Atlanta, GA.

Michael Dukakis acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention Atlanta, GA Part 1.

Michael Dukakis acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention Atlanta, GA Part 2.

Dan Quayle VP acceptance speech at Republican National Convention New Orleans, LA.

George H.W. Bush acceptance speech at Republican National Convention New Orleans, LA.

1992: Barbara Jordan speech at Democratic National Convention New York, NY.

Al Gore VP acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention New York, NY.

Bill Clinton acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention New York, NY.

Pat Buchanan Keynote speech at Republican National Convention Houston, TX.

Ronald Reagan speech at Republican National Convention  Houston, TX Part 1.

Ronald Reagan speech at Republican National Convention  Houston, TX Part 2.

George H. W. Bush acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention Houston, TX.

1996: Jack Kemp VP acceptance speech at Republican National Convention San Diego, CA.

Bob Dole acceptance speech at Republican National Convention San Diego, CA.

Hillary Clinton speech at the Democratic National Convention Chicago, IL.

Bill Clinton acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Chicago, IL. (Currently not available on the TV News Archive.)

2000: Dick Cheney VP 2000 acceptance speech at Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, PA.

George W. Bush acceptance speech at Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, PA Part 1.

George W. Bush acceptance speech at Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, PA Part 2.

Al Gore acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, CA.

2004: Barack Obama keynote speech at Democratic National Convention Boston, MA. (Currently not available on the TV News Archive.)

2004 John Edwards speech at Democratic National Convention  Boston, MA.

John Kerry acceptance speech at  Democratic National Convention  Boston, MA.

John McCain speech at Republican National Convention New York, NY.

Laura Bush speech at  Republican National Convention New York, NY.

George W. Bush acceptance speech at Republican National Convention New York, NY.  (Currently not available on the TV News Archive.)

2008: Ted Kennedy speech at Democratic National Convention Denver, CO.

Michelle Obama speech at Democratic National Convention Denver, CO.

Bill Clinton speech at Democratic National Convention Denver, CO.

Joe Biden VP portion of acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention Denver, CO.

Barack Obama acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention Denver, CO.

Sarah Palin VP acceptance speech at Republican National Convention St. Paul, MN.

Cindy McCain speech at Republican National Convention St. Paul, MN.

John McCain acceptance speech at Republican National Convention St. Paul, MN.

2012: Barack Obama acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention Charlotte, NC CSPAN coverage.

Mitt Romney acceptance speech at Republican National Convention Tampa, FL CSPAN coverage.