On June 14, 2025, US President Donald Trump held a large-scale military parade in Washington, D.C., to mark his 79th birthday. The event, reminiscent of displays of military strength typically associated with authoritarian regimes, triggered immediate backlash across the country. Under the slogan No Kings, tens of thousands gathered in protest—not only in Washington, but also in cities like Salt Lake City and Utah. Some of these protests ended in violence, including two shooting incidents, one of them fatal.

To understand how news publishers positioned themselves around these developments, we used the Trisolute News Dashboard to analyze mobile News Boxes on Google Search in the United States between June 14 and 17, 2025. The analysis is based on a keyword set derived from Google News and Google Trends. All included keywords were thematically related to the parade and its direct consequences.

Let’s dive into the data.

Keywords that ranked for Trump’s military parade and No Kings protests

This list contains the keywords that generated rankings in US mobile News Boxes in the time period from June 14 to June 17 and were thematically related to Trump’s military parade as well as the resulting No King’s protests on June 14. The keywords are sorted in descending order according to their number of rankings. The ranking values in brackets after the keywords represent the number of different appearances on a 15-minute basis in the mobile News Boxes.

In total, 35 keywords could be determined during the examined time period, adding up to 6,130 rankings. Here are some interesting patterns that emerge when analyzing the list.
Note: Visibility in Google’s mobile News Boxes reflects not only user interest but also how Google surfaces and ranks news content. Factors like publisher authority, article structure, and topical relevance contribute alongside search behavior.

Interesting insights

Dual Narratives: Parade vs. Protests

The combined prominence of keywords around “military parade” (1,137) and “no kings” (972) signals that media coverage heavily weighed on both sides of the event: Trump’s parade in Washington, D.C., and the nationwide protests. The near-equal ranking figures reflect this dual narrative.

Trump-Centric Framing

Many top-performing keywords explicitly link Trump to both the parade and the protest movement: “trump military parade” (758), “trump no kings” (342), “military parade trump” (225), and “parade trump” (218) all show that framing news around Trump’s role was a successful visibility strategy.

Momentum in Protest Context

Keywords like “protests” (319), “no kings protests” (185), and “no kings protest salt lake city” (52) denote strong interest not just in the national movement but in specific protests, reflecting sites of tension or violence, pointing toward regional angles that gained prominence. Furthermore, references to Salt Lake City in multiple keywords illustrate that certain protests gained heightened visibility due to developments there, suggesting that geographic hotspots shaped rankings, not just the parade itself.

Coverage of Violence Associated With Protests

Keywords referencing violence in connection with these protests, such as “protest shooting” (116), “no kings protest shooting” (76), and “shooting no kings protest” (72), underscore a focused shift in news coverage toward threat, safety, and public order themes.

Focus on Identities and Incidents

Terms like “man arrested no kings” (40), “no kings killed” (28), and “no kings designer” reflect interest in the identities and fates of protesters, reinforcing the dual narrative of event and consequence.

Let’s now look at the top 10 publishers that made it into the US mobile News Boxes for these keywords:

Top publishers in US mobile News Boxes on the No Kings Day protests

This screenshot from the Trisolute News Dashboard shows the most visible publishers on the No Kings Day protests at the military parade on June 14 in US mobile News Boxes and their courses of visibility throughout the examined time period from June 14 to 17. First, we’ll look at the top 10 publishers and their courses of visibility granulated by days, and then we’ll zoom into the hourly view for the top 5 publishers to get an even more detailed picture of when visibility peaked for them on this issue.

Top 10 publishers on the No Kings protests (days)

1. NY Times
   The New York Times led the field with 11.48% visibility and ranked for a total of 755 keywords. The most ranked keyword was “military parade”, appearing 189 times (17% across all publisher rankings for that term). The Times’ most visible article, “Takeaways From Trump’s Military Parade in Washington,” offers a broad overview of the parade’s symbolism and reception.
2. CNN
   CNN followed with 8.29% visibility and 422 keyword rankings. Like the Times, CNN’s highest keyword was also “military parade”, for which it gained 88 rankings (8% across all publishers). Its most visible article, “June 14, 2025 – Anti-Trump protests held across US as president attends military parade,” directly ties Trump to the widespread protests that occurred simultaneously.
3. AP News
   The Associated Press reached 6.98% visibility with 409 keyword rankings. Its keyword focus shifted toward the protest side, with “no kings” being the most frequently ranked (84 times), equaling 9% of publisher-wide rankings for that term. AP’s most visible article is a visual summary, “Photos of anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ demonstrations across the US,” which likely benefited from image-based syndication.
4. NPR
   The National Public Radio gained 6.71% visibility with 357 keyword rankings. It strongly concentrated on the “no kings” protest narrative, earning 194 rankings for that keyword—an impressive 20% share across all publishers. The outlet’s most prominent article, “3 takeaways from the military parade and No Kings protests on Trump’s birthday,” combines parade and protest analysis with contextual reflections on the president’s birthday celebration.
5. NBC News
   NBC News achieved 5.88% visibility, with 293 keyword rankings. Like others, “military parade” was its strongest keyword (80 rankings; 7%). Its most visible article, “D.C. onlookers line streets for Trump military parade; ‘No Kings’ protests unfold nationwide,” highlights the contrast between celebratory visuals and protest unrest across the country.
6. The Guardian
   The Guardian earned 5.83% visibility and ranked 288 times for keywords. The UK-based outlet had a focus on the protest angle, most notably ranking 93 times for “no kings” (10%). Its top article, “‘No Kings’ demonstrator dies after being shot at Utah protest, police say,” reflects on the tragic escalation of violence tied to the Salt Lake City rally.
7. USA Today
   With 5.32% visibility and 330 keyword rankings, USA Today focused on a mix of coverage, led by the keyword “trump military parade” (52 rankings; 7%). Its most visible piece, “‘No Kings’ Recap: SUV drives into crowd; rallies largely peaceful, draw big crowds,” attempts to balance incident reporting with an overall recap of national protest sentiment.
8. Fox News
   Fox News reached 4.26% visibility, ranking for 243 keywords. It focused more strongly on protest unrest, with its top keyword being “trump no kings” (40 rankings; 12% of publisher-wide appearances). Its most visible headline, “Violent anti-Trump protesters force LAPD to take action as peaceful day turns chaotic,” emphasizes law enforcement response and crowd dynamics.
9. CBS News
   CBS News achieved 3.89% visibility across 339 keyword rankings. It also emphasized the protest side, with “military parade” being the most ranked keyword (85 rankings; 7%). Its most visible article, “Thousands attend “No Kings” rally at Minnesota Capitol in wake of targeted shootings,” focuses on turnout and the tension sparked by earlier violence.
10. Salt Lake Tribune
    The regional Salt Lake Tribune made it into the top ten with 3.38% visibility and 174 keyword rankings. Like with other outlets, “no kings” was its top-performing keyword (34 rankings; 3%). Its standout article, “One person ‘critically injured,’ three in custody after shooting as 10,000 march in Salt Lake City during ‘No Kings’ protest,” offers granular, on-the-ground reporting on the city’s most widely reported incident of the weekend.

Let’s now zoom into the data a bit more by looking at the hourly granulation for the top 5 publishers to get a better idea of when peaks in their visibility exactly took place and which topics can be linked to those peaks.

Top 5 publishers on the No Kings protests (hours)

When looking at the hourly development of visibility in the mobile News Boxes between June 14 and 17, a few patterns emerge across the five top-ranking publishers.

Interestingly, there is no single moment of collective peak visibility across all outlets, except maybe the afternoon of June 16, where both AP News and NBC peak quite rapidly. Instead, each publisher seems to have followed its own publication rhythm, often tied to different editorial angles. Some focused more on the day of the parade itself (June 14), while others achieved their strongest visibility a full day or more after the event, likely through follow-up coverage or reaction pieces. Let’s dig into each publishers’ most prominent visibility peaks to see what might have sparked them.

NY Times

The New York Times shows its two first rather prominent peaks in visibility a full day after the protests, on June 15 at 7 p.m. at 24.54% and on June 16 at 1 a.m. at 25.36%. While the ranked keywords and most visible article during the first peak suggest more of a broader overview of the military parade, the second peak seems to be due to reporting on the fatal shooting at the Salt Lake City protest. Another peak happened later that same day at 4 p.m. at 29.1% visibility. Here, the takeaway article of the military parade seems to have gotten another surge in visibility, while the following peak at 11 p.m. (30.1%) seems to once again be due to reporting on the Kings Day protests. On June 17, the Times’ visibility shoots up significantly to an impressive 42.86% at 1 p.m. and even up to 50% at 9 p.m. Both peaks once again seem to be due to reporting on the fatal shootings during the protests, though during the first peak the focus lies on the Salt Lake City protest, while the second peak is due to reporting on another No Kings protest in Utah, where shots were also fired.

CNN

CNN’s visibility peaks a lot earlier than the NY Times’: At 8 a.m. on June 14, the outlet already reached 21.73%. When looking at the corresponding keywords and articles that ranked at that time, it seems like CNN’s visibility was due to reporting on the planned nationwide protests that had not even taken place at that time. Another peak can be observed on June 16 at 2 a.m. (22.53%), where the visibility spiked due to a focus on the fatal shooting of a protester at the Utah protest. Three more rather prominent peaks happened in the early morning hours of June 16 at midnight (19.5%), 2 a.m. (18.5%), and 5 a.m. (19.5%), this time due to a piece that describes why protesters attended the No Kings protests. Lastly, another peak can be seen at 12 a.m. on June 16, where the visibility once again seems to be due to reporting on the protester that was killed in Utah.

AP News

The AP News’ first major peak can be seen on the day of the protests at 12 p.m. (18.1%) and seems to have been fueled by first pictures of the demonstrations, which they shared in an article. This article brings another, smaller surge of visibility on June 15 at 9 a.m. (14.29%); after that, the publishers’ visibility liew low for the remainder of the day. On early June 16, though, there are two peaks at 3 a.m. (14.19%) and 5 a.m. (17.19%), which seem to be due to reporting on the general, chaotic picture of the protests from the viewpoint of the organizers. Shortly after, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., there is another peak that averages at 16.16% and seems to be due to reporting on the Utah shooting. Immediately after, at 6 p.m., the visibility skyrockets up to 50% for that same topic.

NPR

NPR’s visibility begins with a moderate peak on June 14 at 10 a.m. (12.76%), likely driven by coverage previewing the protests expected to take place in response to Trump’s military parade. On June 15, two further peaks appear in the early morning at 6 a.m. (13.51%) and 8 a.m. (14.87%). Both seem to be tied to a reflective article that recaps the previous day’s events, offering a broader interpretation of both the parade and the initial wave of No Kings protests. A stronger surge follows on June 16 at 5 a.m., where NPR reaches 21.34% visibility. This peak appears linked to an article that draws a connection between the parade and the shooting at a protest in Minnesota, combining the symbolic and violent aspects of the weekend. Finally, the outlet sees its highest point on June 17 at 6 a.m., with 26% visibility. This last spike is likely the result of a more contextual piece exploring how the protests highlight ongoing societal and political divisions across the United States.

NBC News

NBC News registers its first smaller visibility peaks on June 14 between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., reaching 11.25%. These early spikes appear tied to articles discussing weather forecasts and anticipated protest activity surrounding the parade. Another rise at 7 a.m. (11.72%) follows shortly after, likely driven by a live updates format covering the day’s developments. On June 15, visibility increases again at 5 a.m. (13.2%) through continued traction of the same live updates coverage. More substantial peaks occur later that day at 6 p.m. (17.23%) and 8 p.m. (13.94%), both seemingly related to initial reporting on the shooting at a No Kings protest in Salt Lake City. The outlet sees a sharp rise on June 16 at 7 a.m., climbing to 42.07% visibility. This surge appears to result from a combination of two articles—one summarizing the national scale of both the parade and protests and another covering Trump’s defense of the high financial cost of the parade. NBC News then reaches its highest visibility overall on June 16 at 5 p.m., hitting 50% (shared with AP News). This peak is driven by coverage of the Utah shooting, including identification of the victim. A final notable increase occurs on June 17 at 9 p.m. (26%), linked to the same article on the Salt Lake City shooting that had previously gained traction on June 15.

Overall, the zoomed-in perspective shows that visibility in the News Boxes was not just driven by real-time reporting during the parade or protests themselves, but also by the timing and framing of stories in the hours and days that followed. This highlights the value of both immediacy and depth in search visibility during politically charged, fast-moving news events.

Key insights for news publishers

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