Top Republican candidates' TV coverage doesn't reflect their poll support

...There's no question that Trump has played the earned media game masterfully. We can quantify just how masterfully by comparing the news coverage data with polling data over the past year, as compiled by Real Clear Politics. It's clear from the data that TV news coverage over time tracks largely, but not entirely, with candidates' relative positioning in the polls. The better a candidate is polling, the more air time she or he tends to get.

Some candidates, though, get more coverage than their poll numbers suggest they should. Some candidates get a lot less. The outliers raise interesting questions about media fairness. Those questions go well beyond Trump; lately, he's not even the biggest overachiever on the air.

Also, Ted Cruz has real cause for complaint...