Media outlets bashed Sydney Sweeney while sympathizing with child killer Lindsay Clancy

Actress Sydney Sweeney received immense negative coverage from major broadcast networks over controversial advertising campaigns over the last year. The same outlets, meanwhile, have broadly been sympathetic toward Lindsay Clancy.

Sweeney faced widespread backlash last year over an American Eagle advertising campaign promoting jeans that played on the words “jeans” and “genes.” The advertisement was intended to imply that Sweeney has great genetic features that make her attractive, but left-wing activists accused the campaign of invoking eugenics and Nazi racial ideology.

During a segment on ABC’s “Good Morning America First Look,” co-host Rhiannon Ally said the wordplay was being compared to “Nazi propaganda with racial undertones.” The program also featured a professor who discussed the historical associations surrounding eugenics.

Sweeney recently became the subject of another controversy over a largely nude advertisement for Novig, a sports prediction market. Sweeney appeared in the advertisement with no clothing while posing with sporting equipment. 

Female athletes have criticized the advertisement, accusing it of sexualizing women in sports. CBS Mornings’ Adriana Diaz covered the backlash, reporting that "Actor Sydney Sweeney's appearance in a provocative ad campaign is drawing backlash, especially from female athletes."

While Sweeney has faced repeated criticism from major broadcast networks, the same networks gave comparatively favorable coverage to Clancy, who admitted to killing her three children. 

Clancy’s trial ended in a mistrial on September 4. According to an analysis by MRC NewBusters, which analyzed 19 segments discussing Clancy’s trial that aired on ABC, CBS, and NBC between September 8 and September 13, Clancy received 64.6 percent positive coverage across the three networks. The lone juror who favored finding Clancy criminally responsible received 94.7 percent negative coverage. 

“Across 19 segments discussing the Clancy trial, not even two-thirds (12 out of 19, or 63%) clearly explained the why Clancy was even on trial,” MRC NewsBusters reported. “CBS was the only network not to cover NBC10's unprecedented hit piece about the lone ‘holdout juror.’”